


Private Fears in Public Places

by scorpio_pit



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Affairs, Angst, Dom/sub Undertones, Eddie Kaspbrak is Married, Eddie Kaspbrak is a Mess, Eddie Kaspbrak's Power Kink, Friends to Enemies to Hate fucking to Lovers, Friends to Enemies to Lovers, Happy Ending, Hate Sex, Infidelity, M/M, Masturbation, Richie Tozier is a Mess, Shame, They Beat Pennywise The First Time, discussion of suicide attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:47:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24260812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpio_pit/pseuds/scorpio_pit
Summary: Eddie Kaspbrak is thirty-three, out of the closet, and married. He killed a clown with his friends when they were thirteen and he hasn't spoken to half of them since high school. And he hates Richie Tozier.Or, well, he tries his best to.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Original Male Character(s), Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 88
Kudos: 125





	1. I'd Rather Fight With You

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks Wet Eddie Rights group chat for helping me and Alec specifically for betaing this chapter. Love u. This is shaping up to be a long one.  
> Title and all chapter titles are from Private Fears In Public Places by Front Porch Step.

Eddie Kaspbrak is thirty-three, fully out of the closet, and married. He has not spoken to his mother in 10 years, and he is fine, thank you very much. Despite what Bev says about his open marriage structure being “a little fucked up, Eddie, c’mon.” Despite being on another one of the world’s most aggravating juice cleanses, that literally do nothing except elevate their trendy status that Nick, his husband, is so bent on. Despite seeing Mike and Eli talk happily over Skype about adoption papers. And most importantly, most especially, despite seeing Richie fucking Tozier on his TV while he’s trying to watch Netflix in peace. 

“Eddie, skip this episode, I cannot listen to that man talk.” Nick is sitting next to him on the couch, sipping on some type of Sangria in a can. Eddie pauses the episode before on-screen Richie even opens his mouth. On-screen Richie is frozen mid-smile, head thrown back, exposing his entire throat. 

Eddie met Nick in college. Eddie was a freshman studying engineering and Nick was a junior studying political science. Eddie married his first boyfriend and it somehow was not sad because they are _gay_ and _inherently_ more interesting, as Nick likes to joke. Eddie thinks that’s probably true, anyways. 

Nick curls closer to him on the couch, wraps his arm around Eddie’s shoulders and kisses his temple. Eddie realizes he’s been scowling, probably for a while. He doesn’t notice that his face does that sometimes. Richie used to poke Eddie’s forehead right between the eyebrows and wiggle his finger around, to remind Eddie to ‘unscrunch, dipshit.’ 

“I’m sorry, I know, I know. I’ll stop. I didn’t mean to make you upset.” Nick mumbles into Eddie’s hairline. 

“I’m not upset, that's— that’s just how my face is sometimes. What do they call it? Resting bitch face?” Eddie says while waving his hand around dismissively. “Richie Tozier couldn’t upset me if he _tried._ ” 

“Yeah, yeah, okay. Anyways, I’m going out after this episode.” 

“Oh. Okay.”

“Okay? Don’t you want to know why? It’s a Tuesday night.”

“I already know why. Do you need me to ask you why so you can talk about it? Is that what this is?”

Nick swings his legs off of the couch and firmly plants them on the ground, rubbing his hands on his thighs and sitting up straight. He sighs like he is choosing whether or not to behead a captive prince or something. Eddie figures that’s a pretty dramatic sigh for someone who is trying to heckle some type of response out of their husband because they are going to fuck some twenty-two year old. Which is an agreement _Nick_ came up with. Eddie figures Nick only likes to talk about it first so he doesn’t feel as guilty. Like if Eddie questions him, he can explain again why monogamy is unrealistic and he’s happy that they are being _progressive._ Eddie doesn’t really want to give him the satisfaction right now, and he doesn’t really care.

Nick turns his head to look at Eddie. Eddie stares back. He can see Richie paused in the background right behind Nick’s head, but he’s focusing very hard on maintaining eye contact. It feels a bit like establishing dominance over a house cat. Eddie looks away and lets out his own dramatic sigh, he’s earned it.

“Look, can we talk about this tomorrow? I’d honestly just like for you to go now.” Eddie feels Nick stand up while he’s focusing on doing something with his hands. He has a hangnail which he should probably do something about. He looks up and can see Nick give up on the interaction and grab his phone before stiltedly walking towards the front door. 

“Okay, I’ll be back later tonight. Or tomorrow. Just— don’t watch that episode anyways. You’re just going to get yourself worked up.” _It might be fun to be worked up_ , Eddie thinks, _at least it’s not boring._ And _I miss him—_ which Eddie did not give himself permission to think. Maybe he’s already had enough wine.

Eddie hears the door close without seeing Nick walk through it and now he’s afforded the luxury of being alone. He sits back and catalogues his surroundings. It’s just starting to get dark out, he has a glass of cabernet sauvignon. He prefers white but red is good for your heart or something. He’s wearing his house clothes, which tonight consists of plain grey cotton mid-thigh length shorts, and a light blue sweatshirt with ‘Fuck off’ embroidered on the chest in yellow. The sweater is a gift from Bev the last time they saw each other. Which was... fuck, two birthdays ago. He needs to set up a skype with her instead of just a phone call soon. Eddie’s eyes lift to look at Richie on screen again. Why shouldn't he watch it, anyways? It's been years, he can watch an episode of Nailed It with Richie in it. If it ends up upsetting him, well, that's a problem for one-week-from-now-in-a-therapy-session Eddie. Tonight’s Eddie is pressing play.

Eddie hears Richie’s laugh as he unfreezes from his paused state and... Richie looks fucking good. This is the first time Eddie has let himself really look at him since he had braces and acne. He’s seen pictures of Richie or clips here and there throughout the years. He usually looks away before he can dissect all the pieces that grew bigger and came together to make Richie a man.

That’s what he looks like now. A man.

Richie is looking down and smirking a little, the dark smudge of his lashes prominent under the bright studio lighting. Richie has a beard, and much cooler glasses than Eddie remembers. His hair looks soft, but also like he’s not properly conditioning his curls. He’s a little frizzy. He’s wearing a midnight blue button down with white buttons, and the hint of a white t-shirt underneath. Eddie can see his chest hair poking out, and Richie's sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. Richie’s arms and hands are steepled in front of him, he's doing a bit about shaking the show up because he’d rather compete than be a guest judge. 

“What the * _bleep*_ do I know about tasting anything? I ate two bags of Doritos yesterday. But I can definitely make a cake look bad," Richie laughs, clapping his hands together. Richie’s hands are big now, and they look strong and square, and Eddie feels his dick fill out a little in his shorts. Eddie closes his eyes. _I am not going to get hard watching Richie bake_ , he thinks. Also, _I am full of shit._

On screen, Nicole is telling Richie and the other two contestants what they’re going to have to try and recreate. The theme of the episode is the nineties. Richie is standing in the middle of the other two contestants. They’re both short, making Richie look even bigger and wider. When Nicole lets them go pick out the desserts they want to try to make, Richie lags behind and bows like a chivalrous knight allowing the other two to get first pick. Richie ends up holding a cake boombox with a face that is supposed to look like its tongue is sticking out. When he grabs it, he picks it up and holds it in front of his face. Richie’s tongue comes out and he mimics the face back at the dessert. Eddie doesn’t want to think that was cute _or_ funny, but some habits die hard.

“Don’t make out with it!” he hears Nicole scream, but all Eddie can see is how Richie's tongue curls at the end and is shiny with spit. Richie laughs, throwing his head back with it, then walks over to his station. He’s joking a lot about the consent issues of a cookie, but Eddie is tuning him out. Too caught up looking at the way Richie’s fingers look long and thick while he presses the touch screen on the iPad that has his recipe, or his forearms twitching while he tries to mess with the stand mixer. He has clearly never used one before, and he almost breaks off a part. Richie looks up, eyebrows raised, directly into the camera as if to say _‘Did you see that?’_ and he winks. Eddie reaches his hand down to adjust his shorts so it feels less trapped, still refusing to commit, just touching himself delicately. 

It’s embarrassing that he’s getting half hard after a few minutes of watching Richie on a baking show, but if that’s where his life is at right now, he’s going to have to accept it soon or get really fucking bad blue balls. Richie on screen starts walking towards the food pantry to get his supplies. Even watching him walk is doing something to Eddie, who notices how Richie’s ass moves in his jeans, how long his legs are. Eddie starts thinking about what it would feel like to have all of that under him, Richie’s legs on his shoulders.

Something about how big Richie is, how he could span his entire body, makes Eddie want to fold him in half. To be able to look at his face and his neck when he’s driving into him, watch Richie gasp around his thrusts. Eddie presses the palm of his hand onto his hard cock, letting out a breath. Apparently he's reverting back to the cafeteria in sixth grade, when Richie would get his food all over his face but make Eddie chub up when he'd lick it off.

Eddie hasn’t topped in years, Nick prefers him on the bottom.

He wonders if Richie would like that, and pushes the thought away.

Richie hasn’t put out any new comedy recently, but Eddie thinks he’s probably as straight and homophobic as he always sounded. He can ignore that for the sake of this fantasy and worry about the shame later. TV Richie is back at his station messing around with the mixer again, trying to make white icing, therefore trying to fucking kill Eddie. 

Richie makes the icing way too thin, Eddie isn’t sure if it was on purpose or if Richie is really that stupid, but it looks like _filthy_. Jacques and Nicole are cracking up as Richie lifts it with a whisk and dangles it around, saying “That’s definitely not how it's supposed to look but if it tastes okay, I’m using it.” Richie uses his index finger to swipe some off of the whisk, the icing drips down his hand obscenely. Eddie shimmies his shorts down and releases his cock finally, spitting into his hand twice before taking the shaft in his palm and squeezing. On the TV, Richie is licking the icing up from where it dripped down into the hair on his wrist, all the way up to his finger and sucking it off. 

Eddie closes his eyes and pictures Richie on his knees, even in that position his face is still probably higher than Eddie’s waist, the tall fuck. Eddie thinks of how the icing looked as it was being collected by Richie’s tongue and pictures grabbing Richie’s hair from the back of his head and arching his neck. Thinks about making him open his mouth and stick his tongue out while Eddie strokes his red, dripping cock with just the tip brushing Richie’s tongue on the firm strokes.

He’d want to make Richie ask for it.

All of his fantasies about Richie since he was twelve involve making him acknowledge he wants it, he wants it _so bad._ He _needs this, Eddie._

He's always wanted Richie to beg for him, even when... Well, he can’t dwell on it right now as his mind’s Richie is begging for his come and panting and _whining._

Eddie opens his eyes and looks for Richie on screen. At some point Richie took his button down shirt off, revealing what he has on underneath. A white t-shirt with the words “I’D RATHER BE LISTENING TO THE GRAMMY AWARD-WINNING 1999 HIT SMOOTH BY SANTANA FEAT. ROB THOMAS OF MATCHBOX TWENTY OFF THE MULTI PLATINUM ALBUM _SUPPERNATURAL._ ” Eddie’s hand not on his dick comes up and wipes down his face, exasperated, as Richie shows off the shirt and says it’s thematic for the episode while the show plays the chorus of the song. Eddie is red, and humiliated when a snort bursts out before he can help it. 

Richie has flour streaked across his face, in his beard. Eddie doesn’t know how it got there, but he knows that it’s either really fucking hot or he’s just that horny right now. Eddie shakes his head and closes his eyes again, ready to chase his orgasm and get this embarrassment over with.

Imaginary Richie is back on his knees, but he’s licking at Eddie’s balls now. He still has the flour on his face, Eddie notices. His mind is getting away from him because he’s so fucking close to coming. Imaginary Richie is looking up at him almost sweetly, tongue pressed to Eddie’s balls, and Eddie’s dick resting on his face next to the sweet flour spots. Eddie can feel his cock pulsing in his hand, wanting to rub the head of his dick against the flour on Richie’s skin and then make Richie lick it off of him.

The tone is different, it feels stupidly intimate, like they finished baking cookies together or some shit and Richie just had to suck him off. More like stuff Eddie would fantasize about... before.

Eddie’s hand goes faster, twisting around the head of his cock, collecting all the precome leaking out steadily. In his head, Richie moans with one of his balls in his mouth and says “Please come on my face, baby.”

Eddie nearly shouts as he comes all over his fist and his shorts, the light gray material darkening from how much he just came. He breathes heavily, fully aware that _baby_ is what got him. He can try to come up with the filthiest positions or have Richie talk as dirty as he likes, but something about seeing him do something domestic on TV and he’s coming to the word _baby._

Eddie feels the shame rise up like bile in his throat. He pushes the power button on the remote, avoiding looking at the screen. He stands up and wipes his hands down his thighs.

God, he feels like shit. This is so stupid.

He wants to google Richie, immerse himself in the pain of that as punishment, since he’s already feeling broken open and desperate. Why waste the feeling when he can make it worse? Find out who Richie’s seeing, what paparazzi sites even still care about him after such a long hiatus. Richie was only on Nailed It, he said, because he really wanted to be. He wasn’t even promoting anything. He's a has-been, Eddie thinks cruelly. Fuck him.

After he’s cleaned up and smells vaguely like body wipes, he reclines in bed with his laptop and calls Bev on skype. Audio only, he does not need to look into anyone's eyes right now.

Eddie is not gentle with himself, and knows he is going to be fishing for information on Richie. This feels less creepy than googling him, and he really does want to catch up with Bev. It’s always best to do when Nick isn’t home anyways. Beverly Marsh has never been the type to pull her punches when she doesn't like someone. Nick, for his part, is always pretty calm when she snips at him.

He’s deciding how he’s going to be very discreet about Richie when she picks up.

“Hey, Bev.”

“Why do you sound like that?”

“Like what?” Great, he’s already blown it. Eddie starts biting at his hangnail.

“I don’t know, you sound like you’re trying to sound normal. Which you’re bad at. What’s going on?”

“What— nothing! I just missed you, I have no agenda.” Eddie winces, he’s always been bad at hiding things from Bev especially. 

“Anywaaays, what’s new? I saw online you went to a gala recently. You looked great.”

“Uh huh, and is this about who else was there?”

“I have no idea what or who you’re talking about, but if you’d like to share something that’s completely up to you.” Perfect. 

“Yes, Richie was there. No, he didn’t have a date. No, I have no further information at this time because as you know, we haven't talked much since you got me in the divorce. Do you just want his number? I would like to get this portion of the conversation over with so I can just talk to _my friend_ about our lives.” Bev sighs on the line, but Eddie can tell she’s having fun. Bev likes to pretend she’s not into gossip, but if you get one glass of wine in her she’s all about who is fucking who in which bathroom and why it’s _such a bad idea._

“Who’s Richie? Never heard of him, sounds boring. How are you, my best friend Beverly?”

They talk for an hour or so, Eddie learns she’s seeing someone new and that Bill liked the tweet about her going on a date with a ‘mystery man.’ Which they both decided is very weird, but also a very Bill thing to do. He was probably trying to convey he is so _cool with it_ , and _absolutely not weird at all_ but coming off exactly the opposite is kind of his whole deal. Bill and Bev married young, at eighteen before realizing that neither of them were so much in love with each other as they were comfortable together and ended it after two years. Eddie jokes that Bev won _him_ in their very literal divorce. Eddie doesn’t find out who she went on a date with, because it’s too new and she doesn’t want to jinx anything. The most he gets out of her is that it’s someone he’s met. Although Eddie thinks it’s fair for her to hide it from him, he knows he can be a little extreme with vetting people. He just has high standards for her! Usually when he starts off on a tangent about what’s wrong with her new boyfriend, she’ll pull out the fact that if it was Beverly with someone like Nick, Eddie would have condemned him long ago. It shuts him up.

Beverly doesn’t really ask about Nick, or Eddie’s marriage. She knows they’re ‘open,’ and she knows that _Eddie_ knows she’s not really a fan. They avoid the topic unless Eddie really needs to complain about something. Even then he’s sometimes reluctant because he doesn’t want to make things sound worse than they are. He’s not interested in ramping up Bev and Nick’s tension to something above a light simmer that can be overlooked with polite conversation.

Beverly brings up towards the end of the conversation that Stan has called her this week. Which is... odd. She refuses to say what the call was about, something about it being too personal and that Eddie will hear about it eventually but it’s not her place to tell him. Eddie brushes over it quickly, desperately changing the subject. Stan doesn’t even have his number, anyways and they're not in the business of telling each other personal things anymore. Not since Richie broke everyone up. 

They hang up eventually, promising not to go much longer without physically seeing each other, making plans to get drunk on cheap wine like they used to. Eddie misses her presence like a phantom limb sometimes, misses having a friend like that so close by. He tries hard not to think of it much, because it usually evolves into thinking about missing all of the Losers and how it felt to be around them, close to them. How without them it feels like he’s missing six pillars of support, or six voices in his head coming together to make the right choices or just to make jokes funnier.

In his big-eyed youth, Eddie used to think of them like the Megazord from Power Rangers, strong apart but unbeatable together.

What they did together... what they overcame in the sewers... it was really something. He uses tricks his therapist gives to him to compartmentalize the whole event (he’s not supposed to), but how could they have grown apart after that? They were all ready to die together, die _for_ each other down there. How could Richie have been so fucking selfish to break them all in half because he was too scared to listen to what Eddie had to say? How fucking juvenile to be willing to throw away that bond just because, well. For nothing, really. 

Eddie, embarrassed (apparently the mood of the night), feels his eyes start to burn thinking about how he came to fabrications of Richie calling him baby earlier, even now over a decade later. Richie doesn't give a shit about him, at best. At worst, he's a has-been piece of shit, full of homophobic micro aggressions that rival even Dane Cook’s earliest stand up.

Eddie breathes out a giant exhale and grabs his Ambien from his nightstand, ready to head into a hopefully dreamless sleep. He wants to wake up tomorrow on a better day, when he can hopefully start his next stretch of time where he doesn’t think about any of this at all. 

* * *

It’s two days later when Eddie gets a call from Stan. Eddie is sitting in the kitchen, drinking coffee while Nick makes toast and takes pictures of it for his Instagram. His phone lights up with an unknown number, Eddie answers _all_ unknown numbers because he likes to tell them firmly to take him off their fucking call list.

“Edward Kaspbrak speaking.”

“Is that really how you answer the phone?” 

Eddie’s stomach bottoms out because he knows that’s Stan. Everyone sounds different over the phone, Eddie can't even listen to any recording of himself without hating how fast or over the top he sounds. And he's never heard this Stan's voice before, in all its matured deep tones. But he knows it's Stan, he can feel it the way they can all always feel each other. 

“Stan. I’ve been expecting your call,” Eddie looks at Nick, who is looking back at him, face the embodiment of a question mark. They’ve had a good couple of days (like they usually do after Nick goes out with one of his friends) and frankly very explosive sex already this morning. He vented a little to Nick about what was going on, as much as he could without getting into the details of the... clown and Stan and Richie.

“Okay, so we go a decade without talking and you sound like a Sherlock Holmes villain, cool,” Stan chuckles over the line. He sounds warm, like the barrens in the summer.

“Stan—”

“No, sorry, you’ve always sounded like that. I just missed it. Anyways, I don’t know how to really bring this up over the phone. I want all of us to catch up in person. I’ve called everyone else—”

“In _person_? Who?” Eddies heart crawls up into his throat. Surely, Stan doesn't mean all of them. That would be pretty weird given.... 

“ — and— Who? You know who I’m talking about. Everyone. Bev, Ben, Mike, Bill, Richie. I want us all to talk. I have… some stuff to talk about with you guys. We’re all going to meet in New York, you won’t even have to travel. I just need you to show up.”

“Why? Is it...” Eddie's brain is short circuiting, he’s sweating already. He can only think of one reason they would all need to be together after this long apart. It has to be important. A flash of Stan at thirteen, bleeding from the incisions around his face, saying that none of them cared about him. He was so small. They were all so fucking small.

It has to be It. His eyes flit to Nick, visibly alarmed now, he reaches over to pat Eddie’s shoulder and mouth _What?!_

“No. No, Eddie. I’m sorry, fuck, I should have led with that. No wonder you sound like you’re running a marathon. No, I’m sorry. It's not… that. I was, uh, having a tough time recently. I need to talk to all of you. Like we used to.”

Thank fucking Christ.

“Stan, I’ll like, get drinks with you or whatever. _We_ can talk, I just—” Eddie's eyes slip closed in relief that it’s not the clown. But. He’d have to see Richie which could be painful. No, it _would_ be painful. Eddie doesn't want to tell Stan that he's in this thirties and still jerking off to his childhood crush who he's not even friends with anymore and that's why he doesn't want to see them. Bev and Mike will at least understand why. What Richie told Stan when they were teenagers and stopped talking, he doesn’t really know. But he’s sure he comes off as the asshole somehow, even though it was Richie who decided he couldn’t be friends with someone like— nope, not thinking about it. “I don’t really want to see _everyone_ right now.”

“Eddie, I don’t care about you and Richie. I already talked to him, he’s fine with it. Listen,” Eddie hears Stan inhale sharply over the phone, “I attempted suicide last year. I need to talk to all of my friends. I need a support system and I don’t want a new one, I want to fix the best one I already had.” Eddie’s eyes go wide, he’s nodding before he realizes Stan can’t see that. Fuck.

“Yeah, yeah. Okay. Just. Text me the details or whatever. I’m sorry, Stan. I’m glad you’re okay. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be a selfish dick. I’ll do whatever you need.” Nick is obviously confused, but has walked back over to the counter, leaning against it and looking at Eddie while he eats his toast. Content knowing Eddie will tell him whatever is going on, even if he doesn’t really want to. Stan confirms he’ll tell him the details and they hang up quickly, not knowing how to interact with each other smoothly after all this time.

Hearing Stan say he tried to— Eddie can’t imagine how Stan feels. Can’t imagine how he’s going to explain this all to Nick without sounding crazy. _‘Yeah, that was my friend from high school. No, we haven’t talked since. Yeah, our other friend, my best friend, comedian Richie Tozier, cut me off after I tried to come out to him and broke up our friend group. Stan needs to see us all now because he’s having a crisis or something. Oh, why wouldn’t he just talk to his adult friends and not people he knew as teenagers? Well, we all murdered a clown together that was killing and eating kids in our hometown. No, not a serial killer, like he was from space, he had magic. Yeah, so I’m guessing its fucking hard to find and utilize a proper support group of people that can’t know about that. Anyways, can I see the pictures of your fucking toast?’_

“Eddie, babe, what’s wrong? What’s going on? You’re shaking.” Eddie snaps out of it and looks up at Nick at the counter, stubble and curly hair messy from bed and from their activities. He thinks he really does love him sometimes, even just a little. He needs to talk to him about this stuff, but… just not right now. There’s no reason to get into it when he needs to build up the mental preparation to show Richie just how _fine_ he is in person. He wants to help Stan, too, but honestly doesn’t see this reunion making any of them come closer together. 

“Nothing, it was one of my old friends. From, uh, high school. The one I told you about? Beverly mentioned he called her? He wants us to get together soon.” Eddie is leaving out the details. He really, really doesn’t want to get into it right now.

“Why do you look so upset about it? Is he the one you... you know?” Nick's voice is edging towards teasing, probably thinking he misread Eddie’s genuine dread and fear for nervousness about an old crush. Which Eddie guesses was half true. 

“No, he’ll be there though.” Nick walks next to him, leaning down to place a small kiss on Eddie’s hairline.

“I guess we’ll have to make him jealous.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> say hi on twitter if u want @scorpio_pit !


	2. That Lonely Little Heart of Yours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After over a decade, the Losers go to dinner.
> 
> (There is a homophobic slur in this chapter, but it is the title of a book by Larry Kramer.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to [Katie (tempestbreak)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tempestbreak/pseuds/tempestbreak) for beta reading this <3  
> And thank you to the Big Dick Eddie Rights group chat for motivating me when i post the snippets i love y'all
> 
> Also!! I forgot to mention in chapter one, Nailed It didn't come out until 2018, and this is set in 2016. I just decided to ignore that because I could NOT get over how much Nicole Byer and Richie would get along. So just like, pretend that's accurate. Thank you.

Eddie is sitting in his car outside of the restaurant that all of the Losers agreed to meet at for their first dinner together out of this two-week-long reunion. The place is called L’artusi. It is on West 10th in between Chelsea and Soho. Two blocks away from the apartment from the show Friends. Eddie’s eyes are closed, he is doing a breathing exercise.

_In (through the nose) 1. 2. 3. Out (through the mouth) 1. 2. 3._

Bev rents out the private wine cellar for their dinner, because she is rich and generous, and has been talking to Stan almost every day since the original call. She knows they’d all prefer to be alone. Eddie spends hours reading reviews and swiping back and forth between the two pictures of the private dining room on the website. Trying to figure out what view of the room he’ll have when he walks in. Where people might already be sitting. Where he could sit and next to who.

Over the past week or so, Eddie has tried to picture every single possible way this dinner could go. He’s 30 minutes early and trying to come up with his worst-case and best-case scenarios. He has no clue what he wants to get out of this. He tries to wrestle his brain away from thinking _‘what do I want from this’_ in order to focus on what he wants to say to Stan.

Eddie had never been especially close with Stan. He knows that his zero-to-a-hundred manic energy when he was a kid was off-putting to Stan. Eddie, with his red-hot rebellious streak clashing violently against his undiagnosed anxiety, vibrated at a frequency that Stan couldn’t hear. Stan had his failed attempts at being encouragingly responsible, and his soft-spoken, spiky insults that were so pointed you could feel impaled. They all favored Bill as the leader, but when Stan spoke up about something, he made you want to listen to him even more.

Despite their differences, Eddie and Stan had an understanding. They had similar issues with their strict parents, albeit in very different ways. They had similar phobias revolving around cleanliness and organization. They were closer after the sewers. They could look at each other sometimes and know they felt something together, something the others didn’t. Eddie starts feeling the length of his seatbelt, still fastened, trying to ground himself. He hasn’t thought about this in years, unless it was very fleetingly. Eddie remembers that sometimes he would be alone in the clubhouse reading, after they survived, after they killed the clown. He would do this on days he knew everyone had something else to do, so he could be alone in the cool space under ground. They were all getting too tall to be under there, especially Richie and Stan, who hit their growth spurts first. 

Once, Stan came down when it was just supposed to be Eddie, and this time Eddie was looking at something much more dangerous than a comic. Eddie had found out about this author from a trip to New York City that he took with his mother, scouting the place to move there. Eddie had to lie to be allowed two whole hours in the city to himself. He went straight to a bookstore in Hell’s Kitchen knowing he could find something he wasn’t allowed to have and that was enough. He walked down the dusty aisles that smelled like burning herbs and saw a book called ‘Faggots.’ After his initial shock, Eddie opened it and took in as much information as he could, in awe about how the word was being depicted as something less like a whip and more like a shield. The author’s name is Larry Kramer, and Eddie finally got his hands on one of his books called The Normal Heart. Thinking now, Eddie is not sure if Stan knew that the book was about the AIDS epidemic, the gay counter movement, and being in love with men. But at the time, Eddie went into a full-on panic. Either way, Stan had sat next to him, gently held Eddie’s hand, and squeezed it periodically. Eddie felt a lot warmer towards Stan after that. Sometimes they’d even hang out alone and talk about Richie, since they were both Richie’s closest friends, and therefore had the most to gripe about.

When Eddie was seventeen and just starting to veer towards hopeful, he convinced himself he was going to kiss Richie. He would come out to the people that mattered (though he’s sure now that they all knew), and they would leave for college. It was about to be the year 2000, and Eddie was about to get the fuck out of Derry. After, when Eddie lost Richie, he lost Stan, too. Now, in his car, he’s thinking about how close he came to losing Stan in all its finality, without even being around to know. Eddie feels a hollowness carve itself in his chest, thinking Stan’s cuts could have been deeper. Whoever found him could have been later. Would Eddie even have found out? Would any of them? Maybe Richie. Admittedly, Eddie has no idea if they’ve kept in contact. Would Richie have called with that news? What would Eddie have done? 

Eddie realizes he’s panting, starts trying to count his breaths again. He checks the time. He’s got ten more minutes. Eddie checks the watch on his wrist instead of the clock in his car because the clock in his car is set fifteen minutes ahead at all times at Nick’s request. Eddie hates it. Nick likes to be early for things, but isn’t very good at time management. Eddie likes to pretend to be the type of person who arrives early to things, but realistically shows up an hour late, having spent that exact amount of time convincing himself to go at all. Eddie realizes this is probably more about the events he’s been going to than his penchant for lateness. All of the times he remembers getting together with the Losers, on good terms, he was the first one there. This is why he had to tell Nick he couldn’t come. The more Eddie thought about it since Stan called him, the more he realized he is not the same person without them as he was with them. Some things are better: he’s confident now, he knows himself. Some things are worse, like his husband and their dynamic. Eddie feels very unfair counting a whole individual human being as ‘something worse’ about himself, but another new and good thing is he is self-aware now. 

Eddie unbuckles his seat belt and flips his visor down to look at himself in the mirror, his breathing regular. He feels ridiculously like he’s preening, but he really did put effort into looking good tonight. So much so, that seeing him getting ready to walk out of the door had Nick pinning him up against it and kissing him fiercely. Eddie thinks it was meant to be a reminder of who he’s supposed to belong to, but could have had something to do with his top three buttons on his black dress shirt being undone as well. He’s wearing slim fit black suit pants, the ones that make his legs look good, and the matching jacket. Bev tells him all black suits him. In the mirror, Eddie sees his own big eyes, his mouth that's barely more than a slash in his skin, and his elongated rectangular clean-shaven jaw, and knows he’s handsome altogether. More than a sum of his exaggerated parts. He slams the visor back to the ceiling and peers out the windows to the restaurant again. It's brick and stone with glass doors, dirty and squeezed in between other random buildings with no space in between. Eddie likes that, when you can’t tell something is beautiful until you go inside. 

As soon as Eddie gets out of the car, walking towards the door, he can feel himself steel up. He knows he might make an ass of himself in there. The cocktail of his nerves, pent up feelings, despair about Stan, and desperate need to show everyone (Richie) how good he’s doing is like putting way too much cayenne in a Bloody Mary. Eddie shakes out his shoulders and pushes into the building. Immediately he’s asked for reservations. He puffs his chest out, like an asshole on autopilot, and says “Marsh.” The host leads him to the wine cellar, as he approaches, he can hear faint laughter and chatting. He’s relieved to note that even directly outside of the door he can't make out the conversation within. The host looks at Eddie strangely, as he just stares at the door and listens. The host moves forward, reaches towards the door handle as if to open it for Eddie, as if that’s what Eddie was waiting for like he’s the Queen of England or something. Out of complete reflex and panic, Eddie slaps the host’s hand away.

“Oh, _my god._ I am so sorry.” He makes eye contact with the host. Brian, he notices while skimming for a nametag. The host looks justifiably affronted, but not aggressively so. He smirks a little bit.

“It’s okay. Uh, I’ll just. Leave you to it?” Brian The Host awkwardly leaves. Eddie doesn’t make a move. 

After a couple minutes, he jumps when he feels a hand on his shoulder. Eddie whips around, already high strung, thinking it’s the host telling him he really has to go in or he has to leave, he can’t stay in the hall. It’s not, though. It’s all 6 foot 4 inches of handsome: Mike Hanlon. Eddie is so relieved he could _cry_ , and manhandles Mike into a tight hug.

“Mike! Fuck, you scared me,” he says into Mike’s neck.

“Uh, yeah, I could tell. I walked all the way down the hallway without you noticing, while you were just… staring at the door? We could have met up before this and came together, you know.” Mike’s eyes are kind, like they always are, and they’re still loosely embracing each other. Eddie doesn’t know how to answer him, doesn’t want to say he needed his own time before this to freak out in the car. 

“Where’s Eli?” he says instead. 

“At the hotel. I didn’t think he’d want to be around for… whatever the hell tonight is going to be. If it goes well and we all keep seeing each other after this, he’ll come meet everyone. If not, we were just planning on hanging out with you and Bev. I see Nick’s not here either, though I'm guessing for different reasons due to _all this—_ ” Mike gestures vaguely at Eddie as a person. “Who are you trying to seduce here, Kaspbrak? And do not say me, because you _know_ Eli could kick your ass.” Mike looks at Eddie’s face, then down at his semi-open shirt, eyebrows raised. 

Eddie slaps Mike’s bicep and lets out a sharp laugh as they step away from each other. Eddie is viscerally reminded that Mike was the first person he ever came out to, the events of that same day being so darkly overshadowed in his memory by what happened with Richie. He only got to enjoy the high and warm afterglow of Mike’s support for a few hours, but their friendship now is firmly built on it. If he got anything out of their group tearing itself apart, he’s glad it was Mike and Bev. 

He steps back further, taking Mike in. He’s wearing a short-sleeved cream turtleneck, tucked into dark brown trousers. Brown leather belt and shoes to match, both worn out looking in the stylish way. He has gold glasses, with one of those delicate chains holding the arms around his neck. Eddie thinks, not for the first time, how much easier life would have been if he had fallen in love with Mike. 

“First of all, _Hanlon_ , I am not trying to seduce anyone. Don’t be an asshole. If I _was_ trying to seduce someone, there would be four buttons undone, not three like an amateur. Second of all, you look like the world’s hottest librarian, so don’t act like I’m the only one who wanted to present an image here.”

“I’m just tryin’ to get like you, man.” This, them hemming and hawing over one another is warm, familiar. They made a pact over the phone in college to always compliment each other, even from far away. Both of them going into the world wildly insecure from being gay in Derry, or being black _and_ gay in Derry, in Mike’s case. They eventually both found other people who got what they were going through, but still use the code word they decided on sometimes to signal the other when some praise is needed. He misses Mike, wishes him and Eli would move here, but understands why they don’t want to adopt a kid and then raise them in the city. 

“Don’t hit me like you did the nice host.” 

“You _saw_ that?” 

“Hm? What?” Mike is standing there with a shit-eating grin on his face, pushing the door wide open, ushering Eddie in. 

Eddie’s going to need to go to the ER with how much his neck has whipped around in the last hour alone. Spiritually, he feels like a raptor from Jurassic Park, on high alert, trying to smell the room and whipping his skull around in jerky, snap movements. Realistically, he is just standing inside the wine cellar now, looking at the table where Bev, Stan, and Ben (holy _shit)_ are sitting. Eddie breathes out with relief that Richie isn’t here yet. _That means that if we sit near each other, it’ll be up to Richie,_ Eddie thinks, feeling a bit like a toddler.

Mike keeps his hand on Eddie’s back as they make their way into the room, a solid, warm presence Eddie can feel all the way through his clothes. Eddie knows it’s intentional, done to ground him because Mike can tell he’s nervous. He will never be more grateful for Mike Hanlon. Eddie looks at the three of them. His eyes roll over Ben and Stan, their faces are familiar, but grown with mannerisms and lines Eddie has never seen. Ben is the kind of hot that you’d stumble upon in a small town during Christmas in a Hallmark movie. He is stocky, tall, looks like he could throw you over his shoulder while you kick and scream about needing to get back to the big city for business. He has a goatee, and is attractive despite that. He’s smiling at Eddie in a demure way that says “I’m embarrassed to be here, I don’t deserve any attention.” Like when they were kids, Eddie feels the need to reassure him because Ben always thought he was invited to the table out of pity. 

Stan looks simultaneously meticulously put together, and like a tug on the wrong dangling thread of the cashmere sweater (Eddie knows cashmere when he sees it) he’s wearing could pull him apart beyond repair. A striped collared shirt is peeking out at the neck, buttoned all the way to the top, pressing into Stan’s throat. His hair still has the springy curls Eddie remembers, but they are looser now, falling over Stan’s forehead. He has a beard, which Eddie would never have anticipated. But, he guesses, there is a lot about the Stan-shaped man sitting in front of him that he would never have anticipated. Stan’s sitting with his legs crossed and arm draped over the back of Bev’s chair, and he’s directing his patented Uris Stare right at Eddie’s face. Eddie isn’t ready to meet his eyes for more than four seconds, so he looks to Bev. 

Bev looks fucking effervescent, as always, in a navy and black plaid suit, jacket open over a tucked-in black satin blouse. Her red hair is shocking against the midnight blue color, straightened and slicked back a bit making her jaw and cheeks sharp. _She looks like she means business_ , Eddie thinks fondly. 

“Hey, bitch.” Her eyes are crinkled crescents as she nods to Eddie, her voice is high from laughing at whatever was being said before Eddie and Mike came in. She stands up and glides over to them. Mike has taken his hands off of Eddie to reach out to her.

“Ah, Miss Marsh, delightful as always,” Mike grumbles as he kisses the top of Beverly’s head. He lets her go from the embrace and she spins towards Eddie. 

“Mr. Hanlon, smooth as ever. And Eddie! Come _here,_ let me look at you.” She grabs Eddie by the shoulders, slowly spinning him as she gives small tut-tuts of approval. Eddie humors her and tips his chin up like a show dog. “I love this all black thing. Elegant and slutty. Just like you.” Bev gives him a quick smack on the ass.

“Alright, guys, come sit down. Talk to me and Ben. We’re the ones who you haven’t seen in, what? A decade? C’mon. I promise not to be a bummer yet.” Eddie looks up at Stan. Stan’s done staring; he’s smirking at them now, gesturing at the chairs on the opposite side of the table. Eddie walks over and doesn’t really know what to do with his hands. Luckily Ben immediately stands up and wraps him in the warmest hug imaginable. Ben’s arms are solid around him, and he’s patting Eddie on the back a little hard. Ben pulls back, gives Mike the same treatment. 

“It’s so good to see you guys. Really.” Eddie feels his heart cramp up, he hasn’t thought much about Ben in a long while. Seeing him here, eyes painfully earnest, saying how good it is to see _them,_ Eddie feels a little ashamed he didn’t think about Ben every day.

Stan is seated at the head of the long, rectangular table. It's decorated beautifully. Beige table cloth, white dishes, and gold utensils. They have those oversized wine glasses that always seem classier, somehow. The walls are glass, revealing the multiple shelves of the restaurant’s wine collection. Eddie is already eyeing three of them; he knows he’s letting himself get drunk tonight. Eddie sits down, on the same side of the table as Bev, their backs to the door. Mike takes the seat next to him, and Eddie is relieved. Ben is alone on the opposite side, idly chatting with Bev.

“We’re just waiting on Richie and Bill. They’re coming together, I’m pretty sure. They both came from LA,” Stan says with a straight face, but a perfectly clear eye roll in his voice. Eddie would like to learn that talent. The only physical attributes he can inject into his voice are furrowed brows and haughty shoulders. He realizes he’s staring at Stan, and wonders if he looks the way Stan did earlier or if his stare looks softer, how it feels. Stan looks back at him and reaches over and squeezes Eddie’s shoulder. It feels good. He feels good to be here with them. Eddie hears the door open behind him, and some giggling, his ears going hot immediately. 

“This meeting of the Losers Club has officially begun!” 

Eddie turns around slowly and takes in the _sight_ that is Richie and Bill. Richie looks even bigger in person, especially next to Bill who is beaming. They smell like weed. Eddie rolls his eyes. Richie is wearing a t-shirt that looks like it's from a resort, with an expensive button down open over it and fitted jeans. His hair is messy and curly, and he’s covered in stubble. He looks hot, like he did when Eddie jerked off to him, Jesus _Christ._ Bill has a v-neck shirt on under a cardigan, and a scarf. Like, for fashion, not for warmth. He looks like a douche. They’re both idiots. Mike has taken Eddie’s wrist in his large hand and is stroking his wrist bone with his thumb. Eddie makes eye contact with Richie, and sees him notice Mike's hand on his wrist. Richie raises his eyebrows at Eddie like a question, like he could possibly have questions to ask or believe he’s entitled to any answers. Eddie looks away, turns back around and fiddles with his silverware. Richie sits directly across from him. 

They all catch up until the server comes to get their orders. Everyone orders some type of alcohol, except Stan and Ben. Stan, because of his meds, which everyone is firmly understanding about. Except Richie, who says “How are you ever supposed to get any better if you can’t drink, Stan, my man?” which gets a “Shut the fuck up, Richie,” from Bev. Ben, because he is an alcoholic, which he admits with a shy demeanor, face going red just like it used to. To this, Beverly reaches across the table to squeeze Ben’s hand. Which Eddie focuses on for at least five minutes, because it’s much better to think about than Richie across from him seemingly desperate for Eddie to acknowledge him. He’s making obvious plays for Eddie to insult him, keeps knocking his big feet against Eddie’s under the table. Eddie refuses to talk directly to him, and keeps up with the conversation around the table, firmly ignoring Richie being childish. Also, ignoring that he is being childish. It’s worse when Richie does it, at least Eddie isn’t _obvious._

Ben says he’s dating someone, but isn’t sure how serious it is yet. Eddie notices how he looks at Bev when he says it, wonders if he still has the hopeless crush he always did. Eddie knows how hard it can be to get over someone you used to love, especially when they’re famous. Bill talks about his newest (unfinished) novel, how much he likes LA. It’s a bit awkward, since he moved there right after the divorce with Bev, but they all know she isn’t missing him much. At least in the husband way. Eddie sees them smiling at each other a lot, reminds himself to ask Bev if they’ve talked recently.

He knows what’s been going on with Bev and Mike, he talks to them regularly. He gets to hear everyone’s reactions to Mike and his partner Eli’s meet-cute. Mike was travelling the world alone, recording himself making coffee in different locations. Eli was a hiker who passed him on some mountain. Mike offered coffee, and Eli gave him his email address to get the final video compilation of all the coffee making snips spliced together. When Mike sent him the final video, they began a correspondence and now they’re looking to adopt. They all love it, Stan especially. It’s unbearably sweet, and every time Eddie thinks about it he can feel the plaque on his teeth and a hole in his stomach. Mike talks about the activism he’s been involved in, it’s his proudest accomplishment. He’s a local organizer for Black Lives Matter, and most recently held an awareness rally. Stan looks proud. Eddie thinks about when they were kids, how Stan and Mike had a closeness he wasn’t sure about. He didn’t know what it was based on, he never asked.

“I went to something, uh, here in New York. Me and Nick, we met some people at this club. They invited us when we were drunk outside. Gave us a flyer. It was really great. We’re thinking about helping organize some fundraisers for Pride.” Eddie feels himself say this, he didn’t really want to. Mike and Bev know this already, and it feels like oversharing to the rest. He remembers he didn’t _really_ come out to the rest of them. He feels Richie looking between him and Mike. 

“Huh, haven’t talked to you guys in fifteen years, and now you’re all so... gay. And so...” Richie gestures vaguely at Mike.

“Black? Richie... I have always been black.” Mike is smiling, clearly very amused with himself. Richie scoffs and throws a balled up straw wrapper at Mike, Eddie feels warmer than he’s felt in years and he laughs. He lets himself look at Richie for a minute. It can’t be that bad, just to look for a minute. He sees Richie has red cheeks, his eyes are shiny, he’s drunk or on his way there. He looks handsome and soft. 

Eddie’s been chiming in here and there, gaining confidence. He still feels awkward, because everyone in the room knows the schism in the group is at least half his fault in the first place, but no one has brought it up. He thinks someone will have to, or maybe he and Richie won’t have to talk about it. Richie seems fine and casual, even though they haven’t spoken directly to each other. They might be able to get through these two weeks, help Stan, be a group again, just without how close they were as a pair. 

He remembers these people; this dynamic they’ve built hasn’t changed. He is pleasantly tipsy and wonders if they would care about each other as much as they seem to if they never fought the devil together. He thinks that kind of thing cements you together, and if it hadn’t happened, maybe they wouldn’t be here. He also thinks that’s not worth thinking about, much like the real reason they are pulled together. He’s been eyeing Stan carefully, waiting for the inevitable speech. Even Richie’s jokes are getting a little less insufferable, a little funnier. They all ordered a form of pasta, and they’re about halfway through eating. Eddie’s hoping they stay for a few more rounds after.

“So, Eds, how did you finally fight your way out of the closet you were seemingly nailed into?” Richie is drunk, and Eddie doesn’t want to fight, he’s enjoying everyone too much. He assumes Richie doesn’t mean to sound bitter and passive aggressive.

“I was out as soon as I went to college, I didn’t want to deal with making friends I wasn’t out to.” Eddie feels the unspoken _again_ hang in the air. “I actually came out to Mike first, before I left.”

“Ah, the last summer we had, you were with Mike, like, every day if you weren’t with—” Stan closes his mouth and side-eyes Richie, who was looking at his food, jaw set. “Anyways. Tell us that story. Most of us never got to hear about it.”

“Eddie came over on his bike. He was so nervous, he was, like, shaking. So, I knew something was up. He just got off his bike, tried to put the kickstand down, but it was stuck. That bike was old and rusty as shit, you remember. He looked at it like it was a metaphor for the universe, kicked his bike over, and yelled ‘I’m gay’ at me from, like, seven feet away. So, I said ‘that’s okay, Eddie. Come to the barn, away from my parents, you know.’”

“Ha! Yes! You like, pushed me into the barn, you were like ‘not out here, Eddie, what is wrong with you?’ I was just high off of saying it.” Eddie feels himself relaxing into this familiar story, he loves telling it. It’s only half of that day’s story, but it was a good first half.

“Anyways, we got in the barn, Eddie was like super tense, you know how he was. His nose was in the air and he sat down with his arms crossed. He was like ‘I don’t care if you don’t like it, Mike, I’m still gay.’ And I was like ‘What? Eddie, I’m gay too, I just don’t want you to shout it in front of the farmhands and, like, God.’ My parents already thought there was something going on between us.”

“They _did?”_ Richie exclaims, as if he has even _one_ shocked foot to stand on.

“Yeah, they could definitely tell I had a crush on Eddie. We kissed after we came out to each other, but it was clear there really wasn’t anything there.” 

Giggling and sipping her wine, Beverly says “So could I,” the same time Richie says “You _did?”_

“Richie, please, act like you’ve ever had a clue in your life.” Stan teasing Richie is good, familiar ground.

“Well, I didn’t know either!” Bill had been idly chatting to Ben about the discount he gets at Disneyland with his southern California zip code, but seems to be pulled into their conversation to indignantly exclaim this. Stan pins Bill with a brows-up stare and a head tilt as if that just proves his point further.

“No, guys, I didn’t even know, I was too hung up on… Well, you know.” Eddie lets that statement fizzle out of his mouth and die.

“Eds, who were you crushing on if not the town dream boat, fellow gay, Mike Hanlon? With those tiny shorts you would wear to his farm?! Who got you to break his heart?” Richie leans back in his chair, eyeing Eddie up so he feels like he’s on fire. He can almost see a lightbulb go off above Richie’s head. “Wait, was it Bill?” Bill stops mid sentence about how no, he doesn’t really go to Disneyland, despite the discount, to look at Eddie and smile like a cat with a canary. 

“No, it wasn’t Bill. Sorry, Bill. Richie, I had a big, dumb, embarrassing crush on you. Everyone knew that.” Eddie laughs around the absurdity of the words, finding it funnier now after the fourth glass of wine. Also, kind of wanting to make Richie uncomfortable with his bluntness. It feels like a power move.

Richie’s eyes go comically wide, mouth snapping shut from his teasing leer. Eddie watches with fascination as Richie swallows around nothing, his eyes darting around the table. Eddie recognizes his nervous tells, even now. Eddie thinks for a second, maybe Richie really didn’t know. It’s more likely he just didn’t expect Eddie to say it, but Eddie’s different now, and he can talk about it however much he wants. He’s not a scared kid anymore.

“Huh. Didn’t think you would have had a thing for acne scars and braces.”

“I didn’t, _dickhead,_ I had a thing for _you._ ” Eddie feels himself squint, drunk and loose the way he shouldn’t be for this conversation. Confused and angry that Richie is just pretending not to know now? He went to Richie’s fucking house every day after Mike’s, _that_ day especially.

“Everyone knew I was gay, dude.”

“Well, you didn’t come out to _all_ of us, though, did you?”

“Are you—” Breathe. “Are you fucking kidding me?” 

Bev is smiling, watching them back and forth like a tennis match with her chin propped up on one fist, probably delighted at getting to watch this messy turn in the conversation. Mike is watching quietly, eyebrows raised at both of them. Bill is back to his muted conversation with Ben, who is only half listening.

“I just didn’t know we were kissing Eddie, I feel betrayed.” Richie is back to smiling, clearly trying to offer this as a joke. Nope.

“You could have kissed me literally anytime! I had a big, stupid crush on you!” Eddie is yelling, his hands are moving, he’s breathing hard and they have definitely lost the original thread of this conversation. Richie is staring at him, brows furrowed, he looks redder than before. Eddie is sure he does, too, from the drinks. Richie starts to open his mouth to speak.

“Oookay, I knew we’d get here eventually. Tonight is about _me,_ you both can work through your shit on your own time. Or don’t. But, I’d prefer you do, as was the fucking point of this.” Stan cuts him off, slicing his hand horizontally through the air like a referee. Richie is still staring at Eddie, who bites his lip and looks back down at his half-eaten food, untouched for several minutes. Eddie wipes a hand down his face, and feels Richie watch that, too, before he speaks up.

“I’m sorry, Stan. I didn’t mean to make this about me.” Eddie looks up because, curiously, Richie sounds almost sincere. He and Stan are looking at each other with an understanding Eddie is definitely on the outside of. Guess they did keep in contact. 

“Sorry, Stan,” he mumbles, feeling the back of his ears and neck get red with embarrassment. He shouldn’t have drank. What an asshole thing to do, let himself go like this, when they’re supposed to be here to listen to Stan. 

“Guys, it’s fine, I want the full authentic Loser experience back. Which definitely includes you two yelling at each other like toddlers someone put in one big shirt. But, we should talk about why I asked you all here. So we can start having fun. If you still want to. No pressure.” The group all let out noises or words of agreement, encouraging Stan to continue. Eddie hasn’t seen this look on Stan since the sewers. He is fiddling with his hands, making short eye contact before skipping onto looking at something else, clearly uncomfortable. Eddie is reminded of his mom’s tea sets. Stan’s like a beautiful porcelain, hand painted, antique tea cup that must be treated with great consideration and care lest it break and make your fingers bleed.

“Okay. So. Eight months ago, I attempted suicide. I knew something was wrong with me, I didn’t reach out for help. Mostly, because I thought it all had to do with… what happened to us. You know. Sorry, I’ve practiced saying this in therapy, but obviously couldn’t include _the clown.”_ The way Stan says that with such contempt, disgust, takes Eddie aback like he was slapped in the face. “We all know that it was, uh, different for me. I’m not saying we aren’t all traumatized or that we weren’t all petrified. But you all—” Stan stops, steels himself again. “You all knew I felt differently about it. About being left.” Most of the group move to speak, but Stan holds up his hands.

“I am only speaking on my reactions, not on your actions. I know you didn’t mean to leave me, I know the circumstances are insane. Just let me get this out. It reached a boiling point, and I did what I did. My landlord found me, and I was admitted into a mental health unit. I got therapy there, they gave me some tools that I found helpful. Turns out therapy is still a good idea even if you weren’t almost murdered with your friends as a child by a supernatural being that you can’t talk about. Who knew?” Stan chuckles and shrugs a little. Letting some of the air in the room flow easier, a couple of the others let out a small laugh, too. 

“Eventually, I was able to go home, but I had to be watched and continue therapy. My therapist's name is Mary, she’s been amazing. She started asking about ‘support systems.’ I didn’t— I don’t really have one. Which is what started this mess in the first place. I tried going to group, meeting people there. I have met one friend, uh, Patty, there. She’s great, too.” Stan’s… blushing? “Yeah, anyways. I realized no support system is going to work if half of my fucking issues are about something I am not allowed to talk about. Except, to you guys.” Stan takes a minute, making eye contact with each one of them. 

“So, yeah. That’s really it. I just would like for us to take these two weeks we have here, that I’m really grateful you all agreed to, to try and—”

“Stan, of _course,_ ” Mike interrupts Stan. Eddie looks across the table at Richie, who has taken Stan’s hand in his own at some point in the last 10 minutes, without Eddie noticing. “You did great saying all of that. We’ll be the best support group you can imagine. Right?” Mike prompts, looking around the table.

“Well, I don’t know about _the best—_ ”

“Shut up, Richie.” But Stan squeezes Richie’s hand before letting it go, and is smiling fondly.

“We love you, Stan. We’ll do whatever you need.” Bill speaks confidently, reminding Eddie of the boy he knew when they were thirteen.

After that, things go a lot smoother. They are all painfully reminded why they’re here, why they need to try to get along. Although, Eddie knows, no one really has an issue getting along, for Stan’s sake or not, like him and Richie. Richie, who has been quieter since Stan’s admissions. Richie, who has continued to bump his long legs into Eddie’s under the table, enough times now that Eddie can’t count it as a drunk accident. Eddie looks at him once, when he does it again. Feeling Richie’s ankle nudge against his own, he seeks out eye contact, seeing if he can get anything out of Richie’s face that could explain it. Richie just smiles at him warmly and shrugs. They’re done eating, and have ordered a fresh round of drinks after Bev declares she got the room for the whole night. They’re in the middle of making plans to get together tomorrow morning and go sightseeing throughout the day.

“Uh, I have to go to the bathroom. And call Nick, I have to let him know I can’t drive home.”

“We have a hotel room nearby, Eddie, you can stay with me and Eli tonight. Get your car in the morning. We got two beds just in case.” _Just in case of what_ , Eddie wants to ask Mike, but he knows.

“Yeah, thanks, Mike. I’m just gonna. Go let him know. I’ll be right back.”

Eddie feels Richie watching him as he leaves, feels relief as he closes the door and starts walking down the much cooler hallway. He follows the signs to the bathroom, and pauses outside of it to send a text to Nick that he won’t be home tonight, and he probably won’t see him until tomorrow evening after he explores the city with the Losers. Eddie watches the little bubble pop up, Nick types for a few seconds.

_Are you fucking one of them?_

Eddie stares down at his phone, thinks of Richie’s ankle bone pressed into his shin, types back.

_Absolutely not._

* * *

The bathroom is just as nice as the rest of the restaurant. It’s got two stalls, no urinals. Thankfully no bathroom attendant. Eddie really hates the social engagement he is forced to enter into every time he walks into a bathroom with, like, a fucking _guy_ in there. To, what? Dote on him? No, thank you. Eddie takes an extremely long piss, knowing he’s had way too much to drink, excited to just go to sleep. Maybe he’ll convince Mike to head out early, he feels like they’ve both hit their social quota of the day quicker than usual with how heavy it’s been. Eddie flushes with this foot, and goes to the sink to wash his hands. He hears the door open to his right, he doesn’t look to see who it is, because he’s not a serial killer and doesn’t look at other men in bathrooms.

When Eddie looks up to the mirror to reach to dry his hands, he sees Richie in the reflection. He’s leaning against the closed door, _watching_ him with a look he doesn’t know what to do with and Eddie jumps.

“What the _fuck,_ Richie?”

“Still so jumpy, Eds.” Richie’s head, shoulders, and palms are resting against the closed door, looking at Eddie through hooded eyes, throat elongated and exposed. Eddie’s body goes hot, Richie has taken off his outer shirt, his arms are bare, Eddie doesn’t want to think he’s _sexy_ right now. 

“You look good.” Richie eyes scan Eddie’s body from his expensive shoes, up to rest on his thighs, up and up until they hit Eddie’s eyeline again. 

“Yeah, I know. Uh, you look good, too.” Eddie tries his best to be dismissive about it, not like he’s been sneaking looks at Richie’s hands or thighs all night. He shakes his hands off before drying them with a paper towel, desperate for any action to do that isn’t turning around to talk to Richie, alone.

“So you _like-liked_ me, huh? Does your husband know?”

“You’re drunk.” Eddie mumbles, feels his shoulders tense up. Richie laughs.

“Yeah, we’re all drunk. I mean, those of us allowed to imbibe.” Richie rocks on his heels, coming off of and then back into contact with the door, crosses his arms over his chest. Eddie’s hands are dry, he’s just standing there clutching the counter and looking at Richie’s reflection. He’s staring at Richie’s forearms, where the muscles have tensed with how tightly he’s crossing them, at the dusting of hair there. Richie catches him looking and smiles wide. Eddie remembers the flour on his face on TV, and looks back down. It’s safer that way, but he sees Richie moving towards him slowly out of his peripheral. So, he turns around. There’s only about a foot between them.

“Don’t you have to like, pee, or something?” Eddie waves to the stall, knowing he sounds frantic.

“Can I have my kiss now?” 

What.

“What?”

“You said I ‘could have had one literally anytime.’ Can I have it now?”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Richie? This isn’t funny.” Richie isn’t smiling, he inches forward a couple inches, their thighs are only about six inches apart now. Eddie babbles. 

“Oh, that’s it! Isn’t it? You think it’s funny. Of course.” Eddie puts as much venom in his voice as he can muster, and Richie flinches at that, but he still moves closer. Eddie is a stone, he doesn’t think he could move out from under Richie’s stare if he tried.

“I’m not—” Eddie’s eyes drop to where Richie’s throat bobs as he swallows, nervous. “I’m not always joking. I’m not joking _now_.” Richie’s eyes are glued to Eddie’s lips, he’s still getting fucking closer.

“You… you knew. That’s what this whole stupid fight was about. I told you and you stopped fucking talking to me. I can draw my own conclusions.” Eddie sounds like he’s convincing himself, even to his own ears. Richie’s eyes clear up somewhat at that, he looks up into Eddie’s eyes.

“Eddie, Eds, what are you—” They both freeze as a gust of wind hits them signaling someone else entering the bathroom. Richie’s body doesn’t move, but Eddie slides out from between him and the counter at lightning fast speed, heading towards the door himself.

“Eddie, wait, I—”

“Fuck off, Rich.” Eddie grabs the door handle, and leaves without looking back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> say hi on twitter if u want @scorpio_pit !


	3. Living For Your Touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Losers see some sights. Richie sees something else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! it's been a month. I'm sorry about the delay in updates. I had a loved one die from COVID and then I GOT it as well. Everything is good now and we're back on track!!!
> 
> Thank you to [Alec](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queermccoy/pseuds/queermccoy) for the beta. I love you!!!
> 
> And thanks as always to the Horse Cock Rights group chat and the server.

Eddie hates Times Square. He’s never actually been in Times Square, but he will tell you he hates it. For a while, he worked somewhere that was six blocks away from Times Square, and _that_ had been enough to hate it. He would come out on his lunch break to get a hot dog or something, and be harassed every single day by a revolving door of solicitors for shit to do in Times Square. Once, on a particularly bad day, he threw his lunch-sized bag of baked potato chips at a real person, just doing their job. Someone approached him to sell him jeans, and he said _no, thank you_ , and they said _I bet I can make it work for you_ , and he said _no, I don’t want any jeans_ , and they said _you might_ need _some jeans_ , and he said _why the fuck would I_ need _jeans_ , and they said _sir, if you come this way_ — and, well. Eddie hates Times Square and the people there, because they make him, in his thirties, _want_ to throw packaged food at other adults.

Eddie tells Stan about Jeans Guy while they walk around, dodging piles of garbage, both human and literal. All the Losers request something to do today within reasonably the same area. Well, all of them except Richie. Who didn’t fucking show up. 

* * *

At National Geographic Encounter: Ocean Odyssey, Mike points out a wildly realistic holographic baby seal to Eddie and says “That’s you.”

Eddie looks into the fake seal’s fake eyes and watches it float up towards the ceiling, thinks of Richie not fucking showing up and scoffs. “He wishes.”

“What does that even _mean_?”

“Dunno.” Eddie groans and swings his head like a pendulum over to Mike. Mike’s smile grows slowly and he points at Eddie’s face.

“Ha! Seal eyes!”

* * *

At the Garment District, Bill is talking and talking and talking to Stan about how one time he “-- totally stopped a mugging, dude. Yeah, it was Long Beach.”

“Uh huh.” Stan peruses fabric aisles as Bill trails after him.

“So, like two guys were just going at it and they both had like a crew of people around them. I’m like, ‘Oh no! They’re totally robbing each other!’ I was like ‘How is no one stopping this?!’ People were just watching, dude!”

“Mhm.” 

Beverly nudges Eddie with one elbow, lifting her meticulously shaped brows and nodding towards the Bill and Stan fiasco some ways in front of them. Eddie looks back at her, trying to convey _God, I know, right? Can you believe Bill is the guy Richie chose to keep hanging out with?_ into his own eyebrows. Beverly creeps up behind them, pretending to look at fabrics, too.

“So, there I was, in the middle of two guys. I’m looking for whatever they’re trying to steal from each other and, like, pushing them apart. One of them tries to punch me, so I punched him and got him in the nose, at like sixty five percent strength.”

Eddie watches as Beverly starts taking small pieces of popcorn she got outside and throwing them into the hood of Bill’s sleeveless hoodie. Some land right in, and she does a little shoulder-wiggling dance. Some bounce off, light enough to still go unnoticed, and she pouts. Next to Eddie now, Ben is giggling.

Bill still goes on, oblivious.

“The guy falls on the ground, and then the other guy, who I thought I was helping, is all like ‘Woah, man, what the fuck?’ He was all, ‘That’s not fucking cool, man!’”

By the time Bev gets 12 pieces of popcorn successfully into Bill’s hood, he ends the story admitting it was actually a dance battle he broke up on accident, and he cried when he hurt the guy for no reason.

“The guy ended up comforting me and asking if I wanted to play hacky sack. Anyways, that’s what my life has been like without you all.” Bill finishes with a flourish. Stan looks up at Bill.

“I would _love_ to visit you.”

* * *

They go to the Flatiron Building.

Ben stands next to it for a picture, really into this very big building that looks like a very big iron. He looks at the Losers sheepishly, asking if they’d want to be in one, too. He brought a selfie stick.

“You’d need a really big shirt, huh?” 

Ben smirks and snaps the picture on all of them in varying degrees of disbelief (Stan) and laughter (Mike) when they realize that was a fucking big iron joke. Richie would have loved it.

* * *

Eddie perches on a slate ledge where they’ve stopped for a street lunch. The edge cuts into him and leaves a long, straight red mark across the backs of his thighs where his shorts ride up. The Losers have been together all morning. They’re falling into a group dynamic that is both the same and different to when they were kids. The new dynamic is fun, even if it is missing something— some _one_ loud and annoying.

Eddie lets his feet swing before planting them down, wondering if the Richie-shaped hole in the group today is because of him, because he told Richie to fuck off in the bathroom. 

But what the fuck was he supposed to do, huh?

 _Kiss_ him?

Pfffft. He _wishes._

“Sooooooo.” Eddie registers Stan speaking at him and waving some halal in front of his face bringing him back to the present. He takes it, mentally waves off his Richie thoughts like a cloud of mosquitoes (fucking annoying), and watches Stan sit down next to him.

“So.”

 _"You_ have been a bitch all day.” Stan emphasizes _you_ with a point of his fork at Eddie, getting pieces of rice on Eddie’s bare thighs. Is it too soon after Stan’s suicide attempt to be mean to him? Eddie squints.

“Yeah, well _Richie_ isn’t even _here_ , so.” 

“I didn’t ask _why_ you were bitchy.” Stan smirks like he’s caught Eddie. He kinda did, though. 

“What? That’s not _why_ — I was just saying that, like, I’m in a mood, too, but at least I’m fucking _here_.”

“That is definitely why. You should go to his room. Talk it out.” Stan bumps their shoulders together, smirking. “I was always in the middle of you two, none of this is going to be the same if you don’t at least tolerate each other. Please? For me? Your depressed friend?”

“You’re very nonchalant about the whole—” Eddie’s shoulders roll into an aborted shrug movement. “The whole suicide thing. No, I’m not going to his room.”

“I’ll tell you what hotel and room number. If he doesn’t want to listen, tell him that I sent you. Amp up the suicide guilt. Make your eyes all big.”

“So, you want me to… what? Show up to Richie’s hotel room unannounced at—” Rapid FitBit check. “—1:54 PM? And say _‘Oh gee, Richie, we should really talk about our 15 year disagreement here and now, alone, where no one will find us if we kill each other?’_ Is that what you want me to do, Stan? Did he tell you what happened?”

“Yes, do exactly that and take a picture of his face.” Stan sighs. “And kind of. I’m sure I didn’t get the full story. You know talking to Richie is like when he’s hurt. Pulling teeth.”

“ _He_ was hurt? That’s fucking _rich_.”

“Maybe _you_ should be fucking Rich.”

Eddie does a double take, feels his face go cherry-red super fucking quick, and opens his mouth to definitely be mean to Stan, _fuck it_ if it’s too soon— 

“Nope, no, save it for Richie. Go. Now. Eat your halal on the way.” Stan angles his body towards the rest of the Losers, who are eating and chatting, making his voice louder to shout at them. “Everyone! Say goodbye to Eddie, he’s going to go talk to Richie! Bye, Eddie!”

This is very aggressive for someone he hasn’t seen since he was a kid. Then again, it reminds him of when Stan would yell at them all to shut up already when they got too rowdy about a dumb argument in the clubhouse. 

Eddie knows Stan is right, and knows it’s selfish and self destructive to want to go see Richie, but he really never pretended to be much of a good person.

Eddie throws out his food and hails a cab.

* * *

Eddie stands, looks at the 202 on the door— on _Richie’s_ door. Blinks. Pivots. Three long steps to the right. Bites his thumbnail. Looks back. 202. Hears the ice machine. _Whirrrr_. Nods. Three long steps back to the left. 202. 

What if Richie sees him out here, just pacing like a lunatic? What if Richie can tell he’s nervous? What if Richie knows that he knows that Richie can tell that he’s nervous? Eddie needs the playing field for this conversation to be _equal._

Three steps to the left. _Whirrrr._ What if Richie’s not even in there? _Sigh._ Three more steps to the right this time. Cha-cha real smooth— No, Eddie, Jesus Christ.

_Whirrrrrr._

Swallow. He should just knock. Unless...

What if it’s not about Eddie? What if Eddie stomped all the way here and Richie is like, actually sick or something? Laid up in bed, hungover and sweaty? Maybe just in some sleep pants, no shirt. His hairy belly just out, maybe he would try to kiss Eddie again—

Nope, four steps to the right. Hands on hips. Fuck Richie. Fuck him for trying to skip out when Stan needs him. For what? So he doesn’t have to see Eddie? _Richie_ is the one who fucking rejected him in the first place, the one who broke Eddie’s— who broke them all up. _Richie_ is the one who slinked into a public bathroom last night, drunk, asking for a kiss. Now, _Richie_ gets to be the upset one? Fuck that.

Fuck. Four steps back to the left. 202. 

Eddie knocks then immediately folds his arms, like he can take it back now.

Nothing happens.

Eddie bites his lip, hesitantly lifting his fist to knock again when—

“Eddie?! What the fuck?” 

He hears Richie through the door, and what the fuck? Does he have x-ray vision?

“Uh. Yeah. How did you know it was me?”

“The peephole, dipshit.” Oh.

“Oh.”

Nothing happens.

Eddie lifts his arms and waves them in the universal gesture for _So?! Are you going to open the door?!_

“Oh. Yeah, sorry, man.”

The door opens and Richie’s curls are a damp mess and he’s in pajama bottoms. They’re green and black checkered, low on his hips ( _fuck_ ), but he’s wearing a shirt. It’s thin, so Eddie can see his nipples from the strong hotel AC _(fuckfuck_ ), but it is a shirt. So, thank God or whoever for small miracles. He’s not wearing socks, and Eddie thinks ankles are a very underrated sexy feature. Eddie huffs and storms by him. He spins around quickly to face Richie again, arms folded across his chest. 

Eddie opens his mouth. Then… nothing.

Eddie tries not to think about how well he can read Richie still. Richie looks down at the carpet in the few feet between them both, licks at his lips, and looks back up. They blink at each other. Richie is nervous again, biting at his mouth. Eddie can tell he wants to say something, probably a joke to ease the tension. Eddie can’t really focus on anything that isn’t Richie’s stubble and his mouth and his fucking _bare feet_.

“So… why are you here?”

“Stan wants us to clear the air.” Eddie watches as Richie bounces on his feet, hands curling around each other.

“So, you came all the way here in the middle of your meticulously planned day? Instead of, like, tomorrow?” Richie sounds tired, maybe Eddie shouldn’t have come.

“I guess so? I don’t know. I’m already here, let’s just get this over with. We should talk about last night.” Richie’s eyebrows skyrocket to up his forehead.

“Oh, counter point: I don’t want to.” Richie says this in a rush, while bringing his hands together and pointing them at Eddie.

“Why were you flirting with me?” Blunt, but Eddie has to know. Eddie needs that question in the room. Eddie would _not_ let Richie kiss him, even if Richie did actually want to, and even if he wasn’t just fucking with him. 

Eddie wonders if Richie can still read his body, too. He uncrosses his arms just in case, lets his shoulders press back and tilts his chin up.

“I’ve _always_ flirted with you.” Richie throws his hands up, scowling. Eddie can tell he’s performing. “I thought that’s what the reunion was about, getting back to old times!” 

“You asked me to kiss you! That’s a little far, even for how we used to be.” 

Eddie thinks about loogie contests at eight, Richie only caring to challenge Eddie. He thinks about holding hands under the surface of the quarry water at thirteen, smiling at each other with sunburned cheeks and never talking about it. He thinks about going to the clubhouse at fifteen, just the two of them. They were too big for the hammock, but still sat close enough that their legs would overlap across the dirty ground. Richie would lay his hand on Eddie’s ankle, every time. 

He thinks about being seventeen, and going to parties with Richie. He would beg Eddie to go, promising to stay with him, but Eddie would find him making out with some girl in under two hours. Eddie still went, every time, because when they left, they’d sleep in Richie’s bed together. Richie would tell Eddie to stay, so Sonia wouldn’t smell alcohol, but Eddie always thought it was a flimsy excuse.

“I was just drunk, Eddie.”

Richie’s shoulders drop and he looks back to the carpet, one hand coming up to rub at his neck. Eddie almost feels bad, but he’s _not_ seventeen anymore. 

“Do you make it a habit of getting drunk and asking men you don’t know to kiss you? Because from what I remember, it was the fucking opposite.”

“Men _I don’t know_? You’re saying I don’t know you now?”

“You don’t!” 

When Richie looks up to make eye contact, he has the audacity to look incredulous. Isn’t that something? Eddie sighs. 

“Just like, be normal about me being gay. It’s not that hard. And we can keep this up for Stan. I don’t want to fight with you, Rich. Just stop being an asshole. You don’t have to prove you’re not homophobic anymore by pretending to hit on the sad gay best friend you abandoned.”

Eddie sees Richie swallow, carefully doesn’t think about how he wants to— used to want to fit his entire mouth around his Adam's apple and suck on it until it was as red as the fruit it’s named after.

This isn’t how it was supposed to go. Eddie wanted to come in here and say _Richie, you can’t pretend you want to kiss me. It’s cruel and painful and you know why._

Then maybe Richie would say _I’m sorry, Eds, you’re right. I’m going to stop and I’m sorry for leading you on since we were eight, just to disappear when you tried to act on it. We should be friends again._

Or maybe he would say, _I wasn’t pretending._ Maybe he would bring one of his big, square-knuckled hands up and lift Eddie’s chin and— 

“Does Nick know you?” 

Eddie startles, and Richie is _right there._ He’s close. Eddie didn’t see him walk over here, but here he is. Richie sits on the corner of the bed, right next to where Eddie is standing. 

“Nick?” Eddie swallows. Richie looks up from under his lashes. Eddie can see the smudged fingerprints on Richie’s lenses from the stream of light coming from the window behind him. If he let himself look long enough he could count Richie’s pores.

“Your husband.” Richie looks shy.

Does _Nick_ know him? 

He knows that Eddie prefers Fiji water in his work fridge, and he knows to write Eddie’s name on the bottles. He knows Eddie’s birthday for when he has to pick up his prescriptions. He knows not to bring up Sonia. He knows how Eddie likes to be fucked. 

He doesn’t know about the summer Eddie got so into Bill & Ted movies that Richie helped him cut half of his shirts into crop tops. He doesn’t know that Eddie smoked for a while when he was fourteen, what Richie called _Phase Two of the Rebellion_ after Eddie finally told Sonia to fuck off _._ Nick doesn’t know about the _Phases_ at all.

“Uh. I don’t know. I mean. Yeah. He knows enough. He does.”

“Hm. Must be nice.” 

Richie looks away while Eddie looks at the coarse hair that goes down his neck. The peaks of his collarbone under his loose shirt, shifting as he turns.

 _I don’t know, I mean, yeah?! He knows enough_?! What the fuck was _that_ , Eddie?! 

_Must be nice_?! Must be nice _for who_?! Fuck this.

“Yeah. I’m gonna go.” 

Eddie turns, starts towards the door.

Immediately, he feels Richie’s hand wrap around his wrist. Eddie stops moving. Richie’s hand is so _warm_ , and kind of sweaty. Eddie doesn’t even think it’s gross. 

Eddie looks down at where Richie’s long, thick fingers completely circle his wrist, then back up to Richie’s eyes. Richie looks almost as surprised as Eddie feels that his hand is there. He drops it and Eddie really wishes he hadn’t. Eddie hopes Richie couldn’t feel how his pulse is thundering.

But Richie stands up now, the space between them silent and vibrating and almost gone completely. They were close before, Richie’s knees pointed towards Eddie’s legs from the bed. When Richie stands up, there’s only a few inches between them. Eddie has to tilt his head back to keep the eye contact. 

Eddie’s face tenses, he can feel the crease between his eyebrows and his mouth in a tight line. He’s showing his hand. He’s trying to control the visibility of his vulnerability here, but Richie keeps hitting him with these _questions_ and, fuck, he can feel Richie breathing against his hair. 

Eddie is going to take a step back, he is. For real.

In a minute. 

He looks at Richie again.

He sees the small dents in his cheeks under his stubble, the scars from his forgotten acne. Eddie thinks about trying to help Richie find soothing masks at Keene’s. Making silly faces at each other under the cheap green goop, that probably just made Richie’s face worse. Eddie wants to trace them.

He sees the ends of Richie’s curls brushing his forehead, his temples. He remembers Mike braiding Richie’s hair when it was so long, and he refused to cut it because he wanted to look like Keanu Reeves.

He sees the slight bump in the bridge of Richie’s nose, right under his glasses, from when he got into a fight with Bowers when they were sixteen. He should have known his crush wasn’t going to end well. After they ran from the arcade, they were catching their breath and Richie was cradling his bloody, broken nose. He said _Maybe we shouldn’t go places alone anymore._

He’s about to turn away, really. But he sees Richie’s hand rise up, he can still feel him fucking breathing on his face. 

Eddie looks up and sees Richie’s eyes, and swallows. His glasses are more fashionable now, but his eyes are still big and magnified and _blue_ underneath. 

Richie’s hand reaches _up and up and up_ until—

Eddie feels two fingertips press gently into the crease between his eyebrows, and spread. Eddie almost goes cross-eyed trying to follow the sight of Richie’s hand.

“Unscrunch, Eds. You’ll stick like that.” Richie says it so quietly, barely above a whisper. Eddie’s face burns. Richie leaves his fingertips on his forehead, smoothing out the wrinkles. He feels like the quarry water when Bev and Bill would have pebble skipping contests, waves emanating off of the one singular point of contact on his face. Heat rippling from the origin.

Eddie clears his throat, breaks eye contact and finally steps away and walks to the door.

He turns around, hand already on the handle. Richie is still standing in the same spot, in front of the bed, but he looks embarrassed. One of his hands is holding the one that just touched Eddie, like he’s trying to hold it back. 

He lifts the offending hand up in an awkward little wave goodbye, the other one still clinging onto it. It reminds Eddie of Jim Carrey doing that claw thing in _Liar, Liar_ and he looks just as fucking ridiculous.

Eddie leaves.

* * *

Eddie finds Nick as soon as he gets into the house. He could have gone back to finish the day with the Losers, but Stan texted him and told him they’re all going out to a bar later. Including Richie.

Eddie finds Nick in the kitchen. He’s wearing an apron and putting some one-pan organic chicken recipe in the oven. Eddie pushes him into the counter and tries his absolute best to get his tongue into Nick’s throat.

“Fuck me.” Eddie bites it into Nick’s ear as he hikes his thigh up around Nick’s waist and Nick _moans._

They get up the stairs fast, only stopping so Nick can palm at Eddie’s ass through his shorts and bite possessive marks into his neck. 

Eddie presses Nick into bed after they strip and rides Nick’s cock raw, wet and messy with lube because Eddie doesn’t want to wait to prep.

He squeezes his eyes shut and tries very hard not to think of Richie’s knees knocking into his or Richie’s thighs slightly open against the bathroom door or Richie’s eyes on his asking for a kiss or Richie’s fingertips tracing the lines on his face or _RichieRichieRichie_ —

Eddie’s vision goes white and he comes all over Nick’s chest and neck.

Nick scoffs, grabs Eddie’s thighs and flips them.

“Couldn’t even last ten minutes.” Nick mutters into the back of his neck as he slides back into his fluttering hole, balls deep.

Eddie is face down in their pillows and closes his eyes while Nick fucks into him so deep that he could cry from over stimulation. 

Eddie closes his eyes and tries to focus on how good Nick’s cock feels. How he feels the deep, wet slide of it as Nick's big hands hold his ass open. 

He tries to focus on Nick’s hand, now feeding him his own come off of Nick’s chest.

He tries, and fails miserably to focus on Nick’s words.

“You gonna come again this time, baby?” 

All he really thinks about is Richie blushing on his hotel bed, and bites his lips until Nick comes inside of him, hoping that he doesn’t accidentally say the wrong name.

* * *

Later, Eddie’s in the shower. Nick is preening in the mirror, and talking to Eddie while he flosses his teeth.

“If I knew we were going out with your friends, I would have put the plug in you. You could have kept my come in your sweet little ass all night.” Nick laughs, and Eddie remembers them how they used to be.

“We haven’t done that since college.” Eddie’s voice sounds slurred from the floss holding his tongue down as he really gets in there.

Eddie sees Nick’s head pop in past the shower curtain, hair perfectly styled. He looks nice.

“Yeah, well, you just fucked me within an inch of my life. Now, we’re going to go hang out with your childhood friends that I've never met. Including one you were fucking in love with. I don’t even know which one it is! I’m just going to guess! Excuse me for feeling possessive.”

Eddie laughs, and flicks some shower water onto Nick’s face.

“I was going to tell you who it was, but now I’m going to let you guess when we get there. That’s way more fun.”

Nick lets his jaw drop in mock scandal, but shuts the shower curtain and retreats. Eddie hears him go downstairs. 

Alone, Eddie lets himself think.

So, he was going to let Richie kiss him. So what?

He doesn’t have to _tell_ Nick that. Nick fucks other people. Eddie can do what he wants. 

He isn’t even going to _fuck_ Richie, he just got caught up in the moment. 

Eddie is a big enough man to admit there’s still… feelings there. He kind of has to now that he literally came all over his husband while thinking about Richie.

But this is manageable. He can handle this now that he can admit it.

He feels embarrassed and pathetic about apparently still not being over his straight best friend from childhood. _Maybe_ straight. Probably straight.

Eddie also can’t fool himself and say he didn’t consider Richie being gay as a reason he pushed them all away. Eddie let himself think about that for at least a year after Richie fucking ghosted them.

He thought _Oh, he’s just scared. He’ll come back_. But he didn’t. Eddie didn’t want to allow Richie to have an empathetic excuse in his head anymore. So, maybe he makes him the villain a bit. 

Anyways, Richie is still an asshole. No matter how sweet he seemed or how easily he almost got Eddie to fucking kiss him. 

He’s going to go to the bar, with Nick, and show Richie and the rest of them that he’s over the whole thing. They don’t need to hash it out, because Eddie is satisfied the way things are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> say hi on twitter if u want @scorpio_pit !


	4. How Tired Am I of Being Scared?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang (and some spouses) go to a bar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sup, i'm slow as shit!!!!!
> 
> thank u [Alec](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queermccoy/pseuds/queermccoy) for the chapter beta. 
> 
> and thank u to horse cock rights group chat can we please change the name again i know i made it horse cock rights but i'm coming to u as a man and saying i made a mistake

Eddie has never been good at weighty conversations as they happen. He’s quick to react, fast to say whatever comes to his mind in the moment because he’d rather get something out than stand there and look _passive._ If he listens to his therapist, Dr. Bridges, it has to do with how his mother didn’t tolerate ‘talking back’ of any form, even if it was just to question what he was allowed to eat or what pills he was taking. He lashes out quickly without thought now, because he was never able to before.

That being said, Eddie Kaspbrak fucking _stews._ He is the King of Stewing. In the protection of his own subconscious, he has the most intricate, long winded, meticulously thought out, downright scorching conversations with whoever was unlucky enough to have offended him last. Usually it was Sonia. She’d say _‘Eddiebear, it’s better if you stay home today. I don’t want you near the other kids when you just sneezed an hour ago. You know, I’m sure the Tozier one doesn’t wash his hands like he’s supposed to. Go upstairs and wash yours before we eat. Come here and give Mommy a kiss.’_ And Eddie would do it and say _‘Yes, mommy.’_

But all way up the stairs, he’d think _‘Well, mother, I’m sneezing because you have a billion fucking knick knacks that you don’t dust.’_

While washing his hands, he’d huff to himself and mutter _‘Actually, I don’t wash my hands like I’m supposed to either, I only count to ten because fuck you. And I’d rather kiss Richie’s gross hands than ever be forced to kiss your face again. So, there.’_

Richie sometimes would sneak over when Eddie was on one of his tirades. At first, he sat quietly and read one of Eddie’s secret comics until Eddie was done. They were hidden under his bed, in a box inside another box, he’d shown Richie his hiding spot when they were ten. Eventually, at fourteen, after some weed, Eddie told Richie that he talks to himself more than he really talks to any other people. The next time Richie came over, he’d sat on Eddie’s bed commenting while Eddie paced around shouting ‘And another thing!’ slicing his hands through the air until he wore his little body out. Richie dubbed that _Phase One of the Rebellion._

Now, in his thirties, Richie is still the other voice Eddie is ricocheting off of. Only this time, he’s the one Eddie’s arguing with because Richie asked him if his husband _knows_ him; Eddie’s thoughts drip in mocking quotation marks. First off, that’s a fucking ridiculous question. Yeah, Eddie will admit he fumbled the response there, stuttered like an idiot. But Richie was so close to him, surely he knew what he was doing. Definitely just trying to make Eddie look stupid. Nothing to do with that being increasingly more convenient to believe than Richie actually wanting to kiss him, despite the number of times he saw Richie looking at his lips. Absolutely despite the time Richie literally asked for a kiss. Like, what fucking mind games is he playing?!

And he said ‘Must be nice.’ What must be nice, Richard? Must be nice to be known? Must be nice to have a husband who for sure knows and loves him? Uh, yeah, it fuckin’ is.

He better not have meant it must be nice to know Eddie. Because he had that shot! Maybe if he didn’t _abandon_ all his _closest friends_ people would know _him,_ too! Fucking idiot.

Eddie grumbles, “Must be nice, huh? Y’know what woulda been nice, if you spent the day with our friend who almost killed himself, that woulda been nice,” and punctuates it with a shake of his head and a knock of his knuckles against the back of Nick’s chair, snickering. Not grumpy! Definitely thinking about it all in a normal, healthy way.

“Tryin’ to make confetti?” Nick nods pointedly to where Eddie is ripping the label of Nick’s beer off, one piece at a time, culminating in a soggy paper pile on the floor of the bar. He started to sense that Eddie was in a mood on the way there. He didn’t really say anything, never does, but Eddie can tell in how it got Nick in a mood as well.

“Yep, gonna throw it in the air when tonight is over.”

“Wooooow. There’s the enthusiasm I love to see, babe.”

They got to the bar about an hour ago. After making introductions, they all kind of paired off. Nick and Richie meeting for the first time was anticlimactic. Nick doesn’t like Richie and Richie doesn’t seem to notice or care about the tiny barbed insults that were weaved into the small talk. Nick got on surprisingly well with Bill of all people. Eddie still wasn’t sure if Nick actually likes him or if they’ll make fun of Bill later or both, but for now he’s been enjoying Nick talking to someone else. He imagines Nick will want to have Bill over Dinner for Schmucks style. At least he hopes its that and not that Nick wants to fuck Bill, despite how funny it would be to see Bill react to the latter.

Eddie is, and plans to continue, sitting at the bar. Not because he hates fun, which Nick said while Bill laughed, but because sitting at the bar is a completely normal thing to do at a bar. He’s not sulking, he is doing a normal thing. They have bar stools for a reason at bars.

Anyways, Stan and Bev sign up for karaoke. Ben didn’t come for obvious reasons. Mike and Eli keep coming over to try and get Eddie to do shots, saying things like, “What if you just had one tequila? I want tequila Eddie tonight,” and “You keep looking at Richie, why don’t you just go talk to him like a regular, non-stunted adult man?” Thanks Mike and then Eli, for those delightful and supportive statements. So, no need to explain why he’s not hanging out with _them_ at the moment.

And Richie? He’s dancing. With people. Well one person. A man person. Not like, regular silly dancing. Well, it does look silly because it's Richie and he can’t dance. Also, because he’s wearing a shirt that says I Hate Mondays, and shark socks under his Birkenstocks. But if there’s some kind of trick in the way Richie has his right arm wrapped around that Brooklyn twink’s middle while he grinds his twenty-five (maximum) year old ass into Richie’s crotch, Eddie can’t see it. There wouldn’t even be room for a punchline, with how close they are. But Richie is throwing his head back and laughing like it’s all a big, hilarious joke.

Eddie’s not stupid. He’s aware that Richie could be gay, or bi, or whatever the fuck. Sure, he might be straight and just think it’s good to be an ally and ask men if he can kiss them or— Eddie looks back over— push his dick into someone’s lower back, but Eddie isn’t naïve enough to think that's the only possible explanation.

As Eddie heads to the bathroom, he drains his second glass of wine, and thinks. Eddie is not stupid and he’s also not enough of a sucker to think that Richie being gay, or bi, or whatever, can just absolve him of every shitty thing he’s ever done. So, Stan can take his “Oh, let him explain”, and his “Maybe you don’t have all the information,” and shove them up his surprisingly tight ass. (Seriously, Stan is cut. He wore a long sleeve shirt, and shorts tight enough for Eddie to wear. Eddie’s going to ask about his squat regime later.)

But, yeah, Stan can stop dropping hints, Eddie thinks as he pisses. Stan thinks he’s so subtle. Drunk Stan doesn’t know what subtle is. Drunk Stan is walking around this shitty bar with ‘Give Richie a chance, Eddie,’ figuratively sharpee’d on his forehead. If Richie being gay, or bi, or whatever, is the thing that Stan has been alluding to Richie needing to talk about for Eddie to ‘get it,’ please. Don’t make him laugh.

Like, who cares?! Not Eddie. If anything, Richie being gay when he said what he said (he knows what he said), makes it worse! So what if he was scared. Does he think Eddie wasn’t scared when he fucking laid it all out there? Fuck that.

In that youtube video of a standup performance that had to have been early in Richie’s career because his clothes didn’t fit right yet and the place was almost empty, when he said “The only thing worse than getting cockblocked is getting cockblocked by some girl’s gay best friend. I mean, I know I’m gross, but don’t convince her to have standards!” If he was gay during that? Worse! Eddie nods to himself as he leaves the bathroom, heads back to the bar.

Eddie feels himself getting closer to something. He’s been tense since he saw Richie, his metaphorical rubber band stretching impossibly thinner at the hotel. He keeps thinking he can’t get anymore wound up before he pops like a Jack in the Box toy, not even sure of himself or what he’ll do when it finally culminates.

Another thing! The narrative in media that fucked up men can be forgiven because they were secretly gay the whole time is tired! Richie perpetuating that by simply existing inside of his own truth this late in life? Like, how dare he? Frankly, Eddie is sick of it. The narrative. And he’s a little tipsy now, because of his empty stomach probably and he’s going to tell Richie that as soon as he drags him away from—

Oh, Richie isn’t dancing anymore. He’s standing at the bar with the same man from before. Richie’s ordering them drinks from a bartender that looks like fucking Spinner from Degrassi. Richie’s smiling and his hand is low on the kid’s back. Richie makes a goofy face when the bartender turns away, and the kid laughs. Eddie’s internal rubber band stretches just a fraction more.

It shouldn’t bother Eddie. He should go find Nick. He looks around quickly, spotting Nick chatting with Bill and, now, Bev. Well, he shouldn’t interrupt that… Bev looks like she’s playing nice and not at all like she’s going to break her glass full of whiskey against a wall like usual, so he should really leave them to it. He looks over at where Mike and Eli are talking to Stan, makes eye contact with Mike. Mike very rudely shakes his head ‘no’ at Eddie’s aborted attempt to walk over there. So, he really has only one place left to go, right?

Eddie will just go up to the bar and attract as little attention to himself as possible. He doesn’t need Richie’s attention.

(But _why_ isn’t he paying attention to Eddie? Why isn’t he paying attention to _Stan,_ for that matter? ‘Stan’s a grown man who is enjoying himself and you could be, too,’ a voice that sounds suspiciously like Beverly says in his head.)

Yeah, not going to make a scene. Got it.

Eddie slides up to the bar. Well, he doesn’t really slide up. First he looks at the seats, finds one without a rip, he doesn’t want anything snagging on his pants. Great, one stool that is unblemished. Then, he gets eye level with the surface of the lacquered wood. The neon lights shining on it are handy, because if he angles it right he can see every single fleck of dust, piece of hair, or crumb on the bar top. Alright, wipes that off, takes a seat, gingerly, says, “Excuse me, can I have your oldest white, please? Three ice cubes,” as the bartender does a double take behind himself, like he wasn’t aware he was being addressed. Because he was in the middle of getting _Richie’s_ order, but Eddie doesn’t particularly care about that.

“...You got it,” the bartender points at Eddie, and starts over to presumably get his and Richie’s drinks at the same time, but Eddie notices the guy just dunking his wine glass into a pit of ice and what the fuck, why would you have a pit of ice—

“Wait, wait— sorry, do you not have an ice machine?”

“This _is_ an ice machine.”

“When did you clean it?”

“When did I clean the _ice_?” And, oh, so this bartender is a smug asshole. Eddie scowls, obviously he meant the fucking machine.

“Obviously, I meant the fucking—”

“Oookay, that’s enough, Miranda Priestly,” Richie chuckles humorously as he interrupts and slides an arm around Eddie’s shoulder, “Just drink your iced, uh, what is this?”

Eddie realizes his drink is already placed on the counter, Richie’s big, square hand slides the guy enough cash to cover both of their drinks and probably Eddie’s attitude, too. Richie lifts Eddie’s glass to his face, swirls it around, squints theatrically as he sniffs.

“Hmmm… yes… detecting notes of sugar, and _ahhh,_ ” Richie holds the glass up to the light, “these, um, legs?” Richie looks to Eddie, as if for approval, like he doesn’t know what wine legs are. Eddie begrudgingly nods, splays his hand out in a ‘carry on’ motion. Richie smiles, encouraged.

”Yes, these legs mean that the plastic bag this wine came from was recycled from those little soda can things they saved a sea turtle from. For sure. Only the best here at this bar with one operational toilet.”

A snort tumbles out of Eddie before he can tamper it down and his hand covers his face as if that could force it back inside where Richie wouldn’t have heard or seen it. Now that Eddie has Richie’s attention, he has to immediately pretend he’s never ever wanted it, obviously. He reaches over to make a grabby motion at his wine glass still dwarfed by Richie’s palm.

“Bup bup bup, no you don’t, little guy,” Richie’s hand is warm where he grips onto Eddie’s, pulls it down and holds it there out of the way. Eddie looks up from under his furry brows, worries the corner of his lip with his tongue and lets the eyes meet Richie’s. Richie’s casual gaze feels like a bonfire slowly heating up Eddie’s frozen body. Richie circles Eddie’s wrist in his big fingers while simultaneously lifting the glass back up to his own mouth, just a hair away. So close that when he licks his lips, his tongue just brushes the rim. The lightning quick press of Richie’s tongue on the clear glass is followed immediately by his lips settling gently, almost lovingly on the rim. Richie holds Eddie’s eyes like he can control them with a remote and Eddie watches rapturously as a small sip of wine slips into Richie’s wet mouth. Richie swallows slowly, not moving the glass much, like he wants to keep Eddie’s eyes right where they are.

Eddie squeezes his cold fingers into a fist where they’re hanging stupidly in Richie’s solid grip. Richie lets him go. The hairs around Richie’s mouth are shiny where the wine and condensation gather and Eddie wants to know what that tastes like, can feel himself biting his lips and fidgeting with how impaired his judgment is. He wants to lick the sugary-sweet cheap as shit wine from Richie’s throat from the inside or lick his sweat from his collarbone to see if that might taste like it, too.

“Tastes like shit,” Richie seems to steel himself and turns abruptly to… Fuck, Eddie forgot there was another person.

When Richie drops his eyes only to look over at the kid still standing behind him, Eddie’s body ices back over, his walls twice as thick where Richie was trying to splinter them open.

“Eddie, this is my friend, Jake. Jake, this is my...” Richie seems to pause, think something over. Eddie doesn’t know if it’s genuine wonderment at the state of their relationship or if Richie just really wants to hurt his feelings. “I don’t know, Eds, are we friends?”

Eddie can’t usually control his face, he’s always been overly expressive. Now is certainly no different, when he scrunches his nose in distaste and recoils his chin into his neck. His rubber band that had previously relaxed just in the slightest instantly gets pulled tighter than ever. “Really, asshole?”

“Well, you two have some weird energy,” Jake slurs a little. Eddie wonders if Richie knows him, or just met him here, or if it matters. “Richie, find me later. If you want.”

Jake leans up and smacks Richie on the cheek with a wet kiss that is at least seventy-five percent performative and for Eddie’s benefit, he’s sure. Jake rocks back on his heels, smiles at Eddie like Eddie’s a mom in a grocery store he made accidental eye contact with. Ugh.

Eddie rounds back on Richie with what he hopes is an expression that exudes incredulity.

“So, what’s up with that?”

“Does it really matter?” Richie hands Eddie his drink without any extra touching and walks away in generally the same direction Jake went. Eddie stands there, dumb as shit, and looks at the lip print Richie left. He fits his own bottom lip around it and takes a sip. It tastes like shit.

* * *

Eddie plays darts with Mike and Eli. Mike and Eddie suck spectacularly, but Eli is really good. He hits somewhere near the center every time. Eddie doesn’t know what the fuck the rules of darts are or how you win, but he knows that he can barely hit the board and that its fun when they tease him about it. Mike can hit the edges of the board, at least, which prompts him to go off on a story about how they played darts in the Netherlands or some shit. Mike tells long winded stories when he drinks, hopping all over space and time narratively and Eddie never knows what the fuck he’s talking about. Mike starts the stories, and Eli has to finish them. Eddie’s smiling, comfortably listening to them when his phone vibrates in his back pocket.

**Bev Marsh [10:58pm]:  
come to bathrom**

**Eddie Kaspbrak [10:58pm]:  
Why**

**Bev Marsh [10:59pm]:  
Talk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now**

Eddie didn’t know they were however many whiskeys deep for Beverly to want a bathroom buddy, but he excuses himself with a “Be right back,” and Mike nods already enveloped thoroughly in Eli telling their own story back to him.

Eddie makes his way over to the dingy door to the single toilet bathroom, knocks and says, “Bev, I am here, at your service,” before getting pulled in abruptly.

The yellow overhead light flickers, casting a creepy ambiance over Bev who is just standing there. She looks up and down Eddie’s body, suspiciously. He raises his brows, silently questioning his entire life that led him here, being scrutinized in a disgusting bathroom by Beverly.

“What’s going on with you and Richie?”

“What? Nothi—”

“Nope, I can tell. I’m smarter than your average bear,” she lifts a finger and taps on her nose.

“What the fuck is that? Are you Santa Claus?”

“No. Like,” she taps her nose again, with great suffering apparently, “like the ‘I know’ gesture. You know?”

“No, I’ve never seen that in my life.”

“I don’t know, people do it. Like ‘nose’ sounds like ‘knows’ or something. How is that a Santa Claus thing? Whatever, no, stop trying to distract me, shit head.” They squint at each other from opposite sides of the bathroom. Eddie takes great care to square his shoulders and not touch anything. While Beverly leans her entire gremlin body on the nasty sink, hands on her hips.

Eddie keeps his mouth buttoned and waits for her to break. Which she does, turning her body towards the mirror that's peeling at the edges. She starts to reapply her lipstick, unwavering lines despite being drunk. God, he loves Beverly.

“I’m going to fuck Ben.”

“Okay.”

“You should fuck Richie.”

“Oh my god, Bev, I’m going to go home and fuck my husband.”

“If you want to be boring about it, sure. Nick says you can fuck other people, or is that just a ruse so he can stick his dick in his intern’s ass.” Beverly mock frowns, over exaggerated at Eddie through the mirror while she wipes the corners of her mouth.

“Nothing is going on! With! Richie!” He gets louder, clapping on the end three words. Why won’t anyone listen to him?

“Well, I like Richie better.” Bev says this with finality, like it's of the utmost regard. Eddie pinches the bridge of his nose. “Also, you keep dressing up and I know it's not for the rest of us. I know you, and you only peacock like this for one reason. Dick.” She looks him up and down again, “You’re wearing a fucking pastel blouse, for fuck’s sake.”

“I respect and love you, Beverly Marsh, but I don’t give a shit,” Eddie tries to inject his words with the same finality, but he’s never had half the gravitas of Bev, not even on a good day. “He’s straight anyways.”

“Eh. ” She shrugs and pulls the bathroom door open and walks out, dragging Eddie with her before he can ask what ‘eh’ means.

* * *

Eddie spends the next hour on Nick’s lap cozied into a booth. He’s trying to convince himself he’s not being obvious, but these people know him. The thought ‘unlike Nick,’ floats around in his head but he bats it away. Fuck Richie.

While Bev and Stan duet on the bar’s shitty microphones, Eddie’s got one of his thighs hooked over Nick’s. Nick’s hand rests with a warm pressure on the inside of his thigh, thumb trailing lazily on the inseam. Eddie’s had another glass of wine and a shot of something cinnamon-y, courtesy of Stan, along with a big plate of sweet potato fries covered in honey. His hands are sticky and a little damp when he curls one around the back of Nick’s neck and kisses just under his ear. He feels Nick chuckle underneath him, and grip his thigh tighter in warning. Eddie smiles, and if he catches Richie’s eyes and holds them while his tongue flicks Nick’s earlobe, it could have been an accident.

“So, I’ve observed and I’d like to make my guess,” Nick’s voice sounds rough, his mouth tucked next to Eddie’s chin, nosing along his cheek bone.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, my guess on which one of your little friends you had the hots for when you were a kid,” Nick prompts like Eddie is stupid, like he forgot. He did, but he huffs anyways and pretends he didn’t.

“I know. So, what’s the verdict?” Eddie wonders if he’s been obvious enough, if Nick knows him enough to call him out on it.

“Well,” Nick’s arm wraps around Eddie’s shoulders, pulling him closer, “at first I thought maybe Mike. But that would be too obvious, and he’s been over for Thanksgiving, like, twice. So, if it was Mike, you’d have some balls.” As if to demonstrate, Nick’s fingers move over his dick, feather light.

“Mhm,” Eddie gulps.

“So, then I thought maybe Stan, the man of the hour himself. He’s hot, and I could see you both getting overly excited about like, cleaning or something at fourteen. But you’ve barely looked at him since being here, which is honestly rude, Eddie, given the purpose of this whole thing.” Eddie blushes, nods to get Nick to continue.

“It’s not Bill, obviously. Maybe the one that’s not here, Ben?” Eddie snorts before he can catch it, seemingly the theme of the evening. “Ah, maybe not.” Nick presses a kiss to Eddie’s mouth and smiles, “That really only leaves one of ‘em, huh? Unless you’re way more into pussy than you ever let on.”

Eddie pops another fry in his mouth, laughs unabashed, “Ha! Not likely.”

“Didn’t think so. It’s Richie,” Nick takes the fry out of Eddie’s hand and puts it in his own mouth, smiling wide and cocky while he chews it.

“What’s Richie?” Richie says as he approaches their booth with Bill in tow, and Eddie immediately tries to scoot off of Nick’s legs. Nick just moves his arm from Eddie’s shoulders to his waist and tightens it there, unyielding like the other hand still on his thigh.

Eddie isn’t sure what to expect out of this, but it wasn’t Nick saying, “Eddie told me to guess which one of his friends he used to be obsessed with.”

“I did not tell you to guess, you decided to guess.” Eddie grumbles, not exactly pleased to be discussing his youthful infatuation with Nick in front of Richie and Bill, like them talking about it is some kind of cutesy game they’re playing, but here he is. He catches Richie’s expression flash into something hurt, before settling into an unreadable mask and feels the power in that. Richie lands in the booth across from him with Bill squeezing in right after.

“I see,” Richie looks at Eddie instead of Nick, “And what gave it away? I mean, it's the only logical conclusion, I am the hottest one here.”

“Hey! I’m hot, it could have been me!” Bill cries indignantly, twisting his torso to face Richie with an offended look before turning back to Nick. He looks at Nick conspiratorially, rolling his eyes as if to say ‘This guy, right?’

“It’s not your fault, Bill. You’re from LA, Eddie’s from New York. It’s like cats and dogs. He could never love you,” Richie laughs.

“Yeah, well, next time we all do this, we’re gonna be in LA. You’ll stop making fun of me once you all come visit.”

“Ehh, will we, though?” Richie’s voice goes up an octave, and Eddie is glad for the subject change until he feels Richie’s ankle again like at the restaurant. He does nothing but hook it around Eddie’s, but it makes Eddie’s thigh twitch. Nick’s hands on him tighten and Eddie’s in a whole mess with no one to blame but himself. He grew the mess, he nurtured the mess, he read the mess bedtime stories every night. He didn’t expect it to get to this point, especially tonight, and being faced with it is a whole different feeling. It feels like bees in his lungs, not stinging, just flying around with the possibility to sting. The anticipation of it.

“Wait, Richie, you live in California, too. So logically, if it’s you, it could have been me,” Bill smiles, self satisfied for working that one out.

“Yeah, but we all know my heart belongs in New York,” Richie winks.

“Oh my god, I don’t want to talk about this,” Eddie mumbles into his own hands while he runs them down his face, hot under his freckles. Nick laughs and kisses him on the cheek.

“Don’t worry, babe, I’m not jealous. Richie’s too straight, I’ve seen the TMZ articles,” Nick smiles, all razor sharp teeth across the booth.

“Yeah, that’s why this whole thing is—”

“I’m gay, actually.”

“—so embarrassing. Sorry, what?”

“Gay, me. I’m gay. And now I’ve said it, I’m gonna need both of your signatures on my handy dandy travel NDA. I get in so much trouble, my agent made one just for my phone so he wouldn’t have to follow me around and make people sign it when I do stupid shit. It’s a gift, really—” Aside from Richie’s babbling, he seems oddly calm, challenging even. Like he wants someone to argue with him.

“Gay? You’re gay?” Nick is sitting still when he speaks, hands gone lax on Eddie’s body.

“Yep,” Richie pops his ‘p,’ folds his arms across his wide pecs, and jerks his head towards Bill, “Back me up here, Billiam. Bill knows.”

Bill looks bashful, but giddy, like he has the world’s worst read on the present company’s reaction to the news and thinks they’re still joking around. “Yeah, he’s gay. On the DL, that’s what people in Hollywood say.”

Eddie’s head spins, overwhelmed. He’s spent years growing up and fantasizing about hearing Richie say those words, or versions of them. After Richie left, he spent an even longer amount of time wondering, raking through interactions, thinking of it as a possibility despite the news stories of Richie having strings of girlfriends when he first got popular. Now that he’s hearing them, he doesn’t really know what to do about it. He catalogues his response, it's not a surprise. It’s not elation. It's not relief. It’s angry. He’s angry. Bill knew. Has he known the whole time? Did he know when Richie—

“Who else knows, Richie?” Eddie’s voice comes out laced with bitterness, he’s not even trying to cover it up. Fuck Nick and fuck Bill and fuck being comfortable in this moment.

Richie smiles, tight lipped, like he knows exactly what Eddie’s thinking about. He probably does. “Everyone. You’re the last stop on my Coming Out To The Losers Tour.”

Eddie doesn’t just move Richie’s ankle off of him, he _kicks_ it. Richie’s leg slithers it’s retreat like a yo-yo ball. He coughs awkwardly. Everyone remains silent.

“Well, that took a lot out of a guy. I’m gonna go have a smoke,” he nudges Bill, who's still grinning obliviously, with his elbow to let himself out of the booth.

Eddie hears Bill lean in and say, “So, Nick, I’m thinking of starting this podcast,” but he’s gaping after Richie and tunes them out. He distantly recognizes Nick laughing at something Bill is describing, but he can’t focus on it. He needs to… needs to, what? This whole thing is so fucking stupid. Eddie’s trying to tell himself it’s all fucking juvenile, but it doesn’t stamp down the nausea in his stomach or slow the pulse he can feel behind his eyes. He’s replaying that day, The Day, in his head. He’s done it thousands of times, but it feels brand new again. Who the fuck does Richie think he is? He dropped a bomb of context on one of the worst moments of Eddie’s life and he’s just going to go have a fucking cigarette about it?

Eddie tunes back in and realizes Stan came over at some point. He’s sweaty from singing and dancing around and drinking probably. He hears Nick say, “No, Bill, are you kidding? I think a podcast where you review books while high is absolutely unique. I’d love to hear it,” in a voice like he’s talking to a child.

Stan takes a loud sip of his strawberry daiquiri through his red straw and says, “Nicholas, you know when you make fun of someone for being pretentious, it kind of ruins it if you’re being even more pretentious while doing it.”

As much as Eddie would love to stay here and watch Nick experience Stan’s whip sharp rapport for the first time, he has somewhere he needs to be.

* * *

Eddie walks outside, looks around. He doesn’t see Richie near the gaggle of other smokers on the makeshift patio. He keeps walking up the street, not really knowing what else to do, when he passes a tiny alley and sees smoke coming out. The ground is wet, it must have rained a little while they were all inside. Eddie walks in and sees Richie, leaning against the wall under a fire escape. He walks over and stands directly in front of Richie. He’s hunched over a bit, and it’s dark. Eddie can see him enough with the light pollution of the city and the red-hot ember burning a glow on his face.

“Richie. What the fuck,” he says, “Seriously, what the fuck?” Richie looks like he’s going to say something but Eddie holds up a hand. He shuts up. “I don’t want to forgive you. I deserve to be fucking mad.”

“Oh my god, Prince Edward, I’m sooo sorry my coming out wasn’t up to your Supreme Gay standards. Are you serious? You’re going to be fucking—” Richie takes another drag, ashes near Eddie’s shoe, and waves his hand over Eddie’s person “—Eddie about _this_ , too?”

“How drunk are you?” Eddie laces his voice up with the hostility he feels like lacing up steel-toe boots.

“It doesn’t matter! I can do what I want!”

“Yeah? Like Jake?” Eddie lets the words out, doesn’t care if it makes him sound—

“You’re jealous? Is that it?” Richie smirks, one arm coming up to cup the opposite bicep. Eddie tries not to notice how they bulge in his t-shirt. Tries not think about how many times he’s wanted the same biceps holding his legs up. “You have a husband and you’re fucking drunk and jealous that I’m not only paying attention to you,” Richie exhales smoke and Eddie can taste it, it waters his eyes with how close he’s gotten. “You always hated it when I paid attention to other people.”

“Fuck you.”

“You could if you wanted,” Eddie’s blood pounds harder in his ears. His stance is concrete locked, and his fists clench at his sides. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? Why you’ve been all over Nick,” Richie spits the name, “You’re testing out if I was serious. Well, lucky for you, I’m desperate enough to call you out on it.”

Eddie’s about to say ‘No, I’ve been all over my husband because I love him and he _knows_ me,’ but it dies in his throat as Richie’s expression changes to something darker, intense and wanting.

“Eddie, I know what men look like when they want to fuck me and are trying to hide it,” Richie sways, breaches Eddie’s space. “It’s basically my entire experience since I left Derry.”

If Richie’s brave enough to throw that into the air between them, Eddie’s stupid enough to catch it, hold it in his hands and feel the truth of it. His metaphorical rubber band has been slowly ripping under the pull of this thing between them since the first night. Since Richie said ‘kiss me,’ since Richie said ‘does he know you,’ since Richie said ‘unclench.’ Eddie’s sick of questioning, sick of restraining himself, sick of trying to come up with logical reasons why he can’t have this. If Nick can have whatever he wants all the time, why shouldn’t Eddie? What’s the point? Richie is serving himself up on a silver platter and Eddie doesn’t even _have_ to resist, but he has been. And for what? To quell the self preservation of his seventeen year old grudge? Seventeen year old Eddie would definitely want his dick down Richie’s throat until he can’t breathe just to prove Richie wanted it, too, and that he wasn’t fucking crazy. Eddie has lost the reason as to why he’s been fighting this so hard to begin with. He knows he’ll remember tomorrow, but fuck it. Eddie takes those big as fuck scissors people on TV use to open shitty department stores and cuts his own straining rubber band into pieces.

“I’m not going to kiss you,” Eddie says sternly as he pushes down on Richie’s shoulders until he gets the hint and sinks to his knees right there against the brick wall, on the dirty ground. He takes one last hit and throws his cigarette to the side, the ember slowly burning out in a puddle.

“Why would you?” Richie mutters, fingers going for the fly of Eddie’s nice tan dress pants. Before Eddie even has to say anything, Richie is fishing Eddie’s cock out through the fly. Eddie hisses as the chill night air touches his overheated dick, already filling out rapidly. Eddie reaches down and weaves his shaky fingers through Richie’s curls, plunging balls deep on the first stroke into the cocoon of Richie’s hot mouth. Richie _moans._ He moans like he’s been waiting for it, thinking about it, dreaming about it. Like he got on his middle aged fucking knees in public about it. Eddie is aware, in the back of his head, that there are people occasionally walking past the opening at the end of the passageway, but that’s rational and he’s not being rational right now. Richie Tozier is on his knees sucking his cock like a vacuum sealed fleshlight, and he’s not going to be rational about it.

Eddie gasps when Richie flicks his tongue at the bundle of nerves under his cockhead. He grips the hand in Richie’s hair and tugs, making Richie whimper.

Eddie knows he’s well endowed. Seeing his cock stretch Richie’s lips thin, watching as it sinks into Richie’s throat is a distinct high. He’s never felt like this before. Nick is always the aggressor, always the dominant. Eddie’s never taken what he wants like this, and it feels old and new at the same time. Like he’s returning to how something should be while discovering something he had no idea could exist. Fuck, he thinks if he touches Richie’s throat he can _feel_ himself there. He presses the back of Richie’s skull so his nose is buried in Eddie’s pubes and holds him there to test it. He runs two fingertips down Richie’s sharp stubbled jaw, down to his Adam's apple. Ignoring Richie’s choking noises, he presses his fingers into the bulge there and feels it on his dick. Fuck.

He lets Richie back up to get some air, and when he looks down at him, Richie is drooling. He’s got a thick layer of spit on his chin making the short hair glisten, like the wine did earlier. Eddie smiles while he strokes his thumb through the moisture there. Richie is humping his own hand, but Eddie doesn’t care, doesn’t even give it a thought.

“Eds, I—”

“Shut up, Richie,” Eddie strokes Richie’s jaw, the jaw that he watched grow from being a weak-chinned little shit, to being covered in acne, to getting its first few chin hairs and chisel the fuck out. “Open your mouth.”

Richie does, he even sticks his tongue out a bit. Eddie feels heat radiate out from inside of him, centered at the lowest point in his gut. He’s literally living a fantasy he’s always had and he can’t possibly last if he keeps his dick fucking into Richie’s face. He uses his fingers to scoop some of the spit from Richie’s chin back into his mouth, dragging the pads of his pointer and middle finger over Richie’s tongue. He collects some more by going as far back in Richie’s mouth as he can until he gags and starts massaging Eddie’s fingers back, sneaking his tongue in between them.

Eddie chuckles and brings his spit-wet hand around his own cock and begins to stroke, root to tip, twisting at the head. He thinks back to doing this, imagining this almost exactly while watching Richie at the quarry, in class, on TV. His hand speeds up.

Richie, for his part, is panting and grinding viciously into his own palm. Eddie thinks that means he really wanted this. If he pokes around at that thought, at the thought of how long it’s possible Richie has wanted this, what he’s said to Eddie while simultaneously wanting this secretly, he’ll get too fucking angry to come. So, instead he grabs Richie’s face with his free hand and puts the head of his dick right up to his mouth, fucks his fist harder, more erratically and doesn’t think at all. He just watches. He watches the spit still continue to pool on Richie’s curved tongue. He watches the hairs on Richie’s temple curl and sparkle with sweat as his head is rocked back and forth. He watches as Richie clenches his eyes shut, before looking up directly into Eddie’s eyes and whining from the back of his throat. He watches as Richie’s hips stutter, and he comes in his own pants like a teenager just from watching Eddie jerk off.

“Ah, fuck, Richie, m’gonna come—” Eddie wants to give Richie the courtesy to move his face away if he isn’t okay with a huge wad of come landing across it, Eddie isn’t a monster. But Richie just strains his face forward, wrapping his lips around the head of Eddie’s cock. Eddie strokes until his fist meets Richie’s red lips, and that’s what does it. Richie’s just waiting, silently, staring up at Eddie like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be than attached to the end of his dick waiting to be fed his come.

Eddie shoots off into Richie’s patient mouth. It’s so explosive, so beyond what he’s felt before, so intense that he feels his wrists and knees numb out. He understands what people mean now when they say ‘sucked the life out of my cock.’ He’s panting and gross and drops of his sweat are definitely landing on Richie’s face, but Richie doesn’t move. He just kneels there, chest still heaving and waits for instruction. Fuck. They should definitely not drink together anymore.

Eddie extracts his still hard dick from Richie’s mouth, tucks it back into his pants where it can soften up in the next few minutes. It's so quiet. Apart from the soft dripping of the residual water from the rainfall onto the ground from the buildings, apart from their own breathing, there’s no sound. Surely there’s people outside talking or cars beeping, but it’s like they’re in a bubble. Eddie feels bad almost immediately post orgasm. He’s drunk, but it’s not exactly an excuse to treat someone’s mouth like a blow up doll, now matter how much of an asshole that person is currently being. He’s about to say something, scrape the barest form of an apology he can come up with but Richie beats him and speaks first.

“Well. Who knew you fucked like _that,_ Eds. I’ll have to come back for seconds.” Richie smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, as he starts to smooth out his t-shirt stopping to pluck at a wet stain that could be spit or come.

“I’ll never fuck you.” Eddie needs to make that clear. Now, before it goes any further. Doesn’t realize until after it’s already out of his mouth how true he believes it to be. Full circle or whatever. Richie snorts.

“Noted. Help me up?” It’s Richie’s turn to make grabby hands and Eddie obliges, yanking him to his feet. They stumble into each other, Richie from the momentum, Eddie from his still come-weak limbs. Eddie looks up into Richie’s face now. Something about looking up at him versus down makes him see clear through the alcohol fog again. Richie’s eyes look so blue and the shadows from his eyelashes are long and spidery and beautiful. Eddie needs to never look at them again. He’s starting to panic.

“Richie, I’m sorry if I—”

“No, Eddie, it’s fine. Trust me. Best alley blow job I’ve ever given.” Richie looks at him, through him, sighs. “Listen, I know you’re mad. You have the right to be mad. Don’t feel bad about it, that was hot. We can talk about it later. But,” Richie looks down at himself pointedly, “I’m going to go. I have come drying in my boxers and you came on my ‘I Hate Mondays’ shirt. Now I’ll have to find my Tuesday one.” Richie laughs and knocks his shoulder into Eddie.

Eddie lets out a resigned huff, his face flushes and he mutters, “Yeah, okay. Good to get it out of our systems.”

“Yeah, definitely. It’s so flushed out of my system, you can call me a toilet.”

“Yeah. Okay. Bye.” Eddie stands still for a couple more seconds before retreating back to the front of the bar. He’s good. He feels fine. Good, he feels good. He doesn’t have to tell Nick, or anyone, and technically he didn’t do anything wrong. His long shitty road of pining after Richie Tozier can end here. It’s like a shitty little alley water stained bow to a big dramatic arc that has shadowed most of his life. He had Richie, he doesn’t have to wonder what it’s like anymore. He doesn’t have to worry about what Richie thinks. Richie’s a grown up, and he can worry about his own feelings and if he regrets it. Does he? Will he?

No, doesn’t matter. It’s done. Eddie’s not thinking about how Richie is, as far as he knows, still in the fucking alley thirty feet away, giving _Eddie_ his space. Eddie’s not thinking about how sad it was for Richie to not only allow, but openly welcome Eddie treating him like shit. Or thinking about how Richie got that sad. How many people have treated Richie like that? Eddie wants to think he’s different that the closet cases Richie mentioned, because Richie fucking… he hurt him first. He told Richie he wouldn’t fuck him, but he used him anyways, and isn’t that exactly what he deserves? Eddie feels the pieces of his tension pick themselves back up from the ribbons he cut them in, and start melting back into each other. Turns out if you pretend to cut up a rubber band in your head, it means literally nothing because your head can just make a new one. Fucking sweet.

Yeah, so. It doesn’t matter. He texts Nick to tell the others he drank too much and they’re leaving. He orders an Uber.

It doesn’t matter. It’s out of their systems, and Eddie can relax. It’s not happening again.

**Author's Note:**

> say hi on twitter if u want @scorpio_pit !


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